Teen Spirit
by circuswheel
Summary: I'm on my time with everyone. Or, Jade's never not been anything else. Concurrent to TYSW. Bade and eventual Rade; Jade/Cat friendship.
1. Chapter 1

**Teen Spirit**

**I'm on my time with everyone. Or, Jade's never not been anything else. Concurrent to TYSW. Bade and eventual Rade; Jade/Cat friendship.**

**Chapter One**

At the start of the January semester, Tori Vega transfers into Hollywood Arts, and Jade hates her on sight as she walks into Sikowitz's class that morning.

Tori's taller than her, with a bright smile, long waving hair that's longer than Jade's and a darker shade, a nicer shade. Jade hates girls with nicer hair than her. It's just a bit of a sensitive spot with her.

The first thing Tori does once she gets into Hollywood Arts is spill her coffee all over Beck and then get right up in his business, squeaking and touching Jade's boyfriend all over, further cementing her hatred.

"Why are you _rubbing_ my _boyfriend?_" Jade demands, and Vega squeaks and stammers. Beck watches the girls with a raised eyebrow. He doesn't make any attempt to shove Vega away and she can tell by Vega's huge googly eyes that Beck hasn't told her he's dating someone – she _hates _when he acts like this! He knows that she gets jealous – he's always known of her temper, since way before they started to date. For god's sake, the first time he'd seen her, she'd been shrieking at Robbie simply for existing. He should know better. And, well, Tori needs to learn to know better too, and pronto.

So of course she retaliates. What else can she do? Beck's upset at her for, like, a whole week after, but she's sort of pissed at him too – he kissed Tori! For a stage act, yeah, but everyone totally knew where the scene was leading to, and he totally could have stopped it if he wanted to.

Beck's such a jerk sometimes.

"I like Tori," Cat says happily into her cheese fries as they're waiting for everyone else to join them at lunch. So far it's just her, Cat, and puppet boy, who's frantically trying to finish his stupid science homework at their usual table. What a dork, she thinks absently, popping open the grape soda that Cat's bought her. Gepetto gives her a brief disgusted look before turning to his papers once more and frowning down at them. He only likes generic soda flavors, if he drinks it at all. Sometimes he drinks _diet._ Again: what a dork.

"You would," Jade grunts, taking a sip of her soda.

"She's nice to me," Cat continues blithely. "She gave me her phone number! She wants to go to the mall this weekend."

"Oh yeah?" Jade says, plotting Tori's now clearly eminent death. Trying to steal Beck is one thing – one very shitty thing. But to encroach on Cat, her only friend – well, that's a whole different ballpark.

Tori and Andre appear at the table, trays full of pizza and french fries.

"Hi Tori!" Cat burbles, as the brunette takes a seat beside her. "Hi Andre!"

Tori beams at Cat before opening her own bottle of soda. "Hey Cat," she says. "What's up?" She takes a huge bite of her gross dripping pizza.

"Should you really be eating that?" Jade sneers. "Your jeans are looking a little _tight_, Vega. Unless, of course, that's by choice."

Gepetto squeaks a little and sinks further down in his chair, looking furtively into his notebook and scribbling. Probably planning how he can make it to the bathroom without Jade making fun of him. Which he can't.

Tori frowns at her, chewing. She's got some pizza grease on her purple blouse, Jade notes, pleased. "My jeans aren't too tight," she says nervously. "Are they too tight, Cat?"

"I don't think so," Cat says, frowning critically. "Stand up and turn around."

Tori does, twirling fitfully so that Cat can inspect her backside. Beck comes up beside them as Tori's in mid-twirl.

"I think they look fine," says Cat, as Beck smirks.

"What's the show for?" he asks, taking his seat beside Jade, across from Puppet-Boy, who now has ink from his pen smeared on his big honkin' nose.

"Oh – hi Beck!" squeaks Tori, blushing prettily (HATE!). Beck smiles at her, and Jade scowls. She stabs at her salad hard with her plastic fork. Gepetto squeaks again.

"You okay, Robbie?" Andre asks him.

"Yes," says Geppeto, staring even harder into his textbook.

Jade rolls her eyes, glaring at him, but she decides not to bait him today. Shapiro never really … _does_ anything to her. Aside from, you know, annoying her a little bit with how much of a sad sack he can be. She doesn't know his deal, and that sort of irritates her. And right now she's reading _Under the Dome_, which is turning out to be pretty awesome, and is a book Shapiro bought her for Christmas. So she picks at Tori instead.

"Jade, come on," Beck sighs from next to her, leaning on the table with his head propped up on his hands. "Can't you just stop?"

"Stop what?" she asks, feigning innocence, as Tori's frowning and checking her makeup in her little mirror compact.

"My lipstick is not smudged, Jade!" she says indignantly.

"You know what," Beck tells her quietly, giving her a little glare. Glaring! At _her!_

"I'm not doing anything," she says sweetly. Beck rolls his eyes at her. He mumbles something intelligible. She may hear the words 'jealous' and 'crazy,' so she thumps him on the shoulder for good measure.

"Jade!" he hollers, rubbing his shoulder and gaping at her all aghast. "Man, what is _wrong_ with you today?"

Jade crushes her soda can against the table with one hand. "Nothing, aside from being surrounded by idiots."

Cat and Robbie look sad. Maybe she'll apologize later. Well, to Cat at least. Shapiro, she doesn't really care about.

Beck just glares at her incredulously, then turns back to continue listening to what Tori's saying about her equally-annoying sister, Trina.

Jade scowls.

* * *

Sophomore year continues to go by. Jade works on her film. It started out as a project for her playwrite's class, but as she works on it more and more, she's starting to feel like – like she's actually got something here. She's trying to get booked on a stage for a night at a small venue on the outskirts of Hollywood. Her father has said he's going to pay for the night, which is really cool of him, since it's super expensive, even though the theatre is pretty run-down. She and Cat are already making posters to put up for it at school. One day Harris and Shapiro come over to Cat's house too and help, which is cool, she guesses.

"I think there'll be a huge turn out," Cat tells her happily, outlining a poster in pink glitter paint pen. "What else is there for us kids to do on a Thursday night in May?"

She hopes Cat has a point. She also hopes Cat won't notice when her multitude of pink posters go missing and fail to adorn the school's walls. Oh well. She has months to worry about it.

Later, her little half - brother, Jefferson, who's just turned seven, is bouncing around the kitchen as Jade's at the table, frowning over her film reels and notes.

"Jade!" he's crying. "Are there dinosaurs in your movie?"

"No," she says, writing down a new idea in her notebook.

Stepmonster is putting away groceries. Jade's glad that her brother has seemingly seen fit to wear his pirate costume to the store once again. "When is this again?"

Jade rolls her eyes harder than necessary. "Not until May," she growls. "Don't you even talk to my dad?"

Sophia the stepmonster sniffs. "Well Jeff and I will make sure to clear our social calenders. Right, Jeffy?"

Ew. Jeffy.

"Right!" beams Jeffy. He dances around the table. "Please can there be a dinosaur, Jade?" Jade ignores him.

"So what is this film about?" Stepmonster asks, her stupid accent making her words all long and twisty.

"It's a social commentary," Jade grunts, wishing she could think real hard and banish Sophia to the cornfield. "It's about how people are seen through the eyes of other people."

Sophia looks sort of impressed. Jefferson looks excited. "A dinosaur would be seen as scary!" he says. "Rawr! Please, Jade, please! A T Rex! Please! For just a minute!"

"I'll see what I can do," she snaps. Honestly, anything to abate him. The kid can go on and on.

Jeff looks wildly thrilled. "Maybe from The Land Before Time! Please Jade!" He shrieks in a high voice, "_SHARPTOOTH!_" Then he just shrieks intelligibly, zooming around the kitchen. He sword catches and knocks a whole pile of cans to the floor.

Jade and Sophia look aggrieved.

Has Jade mentions that she hates Tori? Hollywood Arts has been given an offer to sing for some prestigious politician in South America, like, yeah right, and Sikowitz is trying to get their merry band of misfits nominated, and of course he can't pick between her and Tori for the big solo. If anything, Cat is much better suited to sing with Jade. Tori's voice is too pop-star diva-esque to be anything special.

Eventually, Sikowitz decides to split the solo between them, and Jade spends a few days scowling and sulking to an amused Beck. What the hell is she going to put on her college applications? _Shared solo._ Not very impressive. She's never going to get in NYU. Maybe she can be a janitor here at Hollywood Arts for the rest of her days. That closet is pretty roomy, she has to admit. She and Beck should know. Anyway.

Stupid Tori!

Their demo recording impresses the chancellor, and their group gets picked – Jade, Tori, and Cat; Beck and Andre and Robbie on backing vocals. Sikowitz is thrilled and goes around for two weeks, happily singing the song he's composed. It's really not that bad, Jade thinks.

So they're going to Uruguay. Jade only knows where that is because she, Cat, Robbie, and Beck had watched some movie in Beck's RV one night about a rugby team getting trapped on a mountain there. It was pretty cool. It wasn't really a horror movie, but they had _ate_ each other. Cat had cried, and Geppeto had squeaked about how unrealistic Ethan Hawke had been as the lead. "He can't pass for South American at all!" he'd huffed. Jade had privately agreed with him, but she loves Dead Poet's Society, and keeps her opinions to herself.

On the unyieldingly long plane ride there, she sits between Beck and Robbie, Cat in front of her, twisting around dangerously to yap about anything and everything. Jade flips through Robbie's passport and laughs at his ugly picture. "Ew, why have you gone to Ontario?" she sneers. "Are you a closet Canadian like Beck?"

"Jade, shh!" Beck squawks, looking around nervously.

At their dress rehearsal the first night, Tori's trying a little extra dancing for flair, and her high-heeled pump flies off mid-kick and catches the chancellor right in the eye. Tori's mortified; the chancellor's fairly pissed; Jade's ecstatic. "Maybe they'll deport her," she says to Geppeto, who looks nervous.

Tori chases him (the chancellor, not puppet boy) around as he's attempting to get medical attention, trying to apologize. He barks at her roughly in gruff Spanish. Beside Jade, Cat looks sort of appalled. Her father is Mexican on his mother's side, and they usually go over the border once or twice a year to visit the family. Jade knows Cat's pretty fluent in Spanish.

"What's he saying to her?" Jade whispers gleefully into Cat's ear.

Cat shakes her head, eyes wide as milk saucers. "I think it must be a different dialect..." she murmurs back, twisting her dark red hair nervously in her fists.

Must be really vulgar. Jade feels happy.

**Author's Note: I know I should be focused on finishing TYSW, but I couldn't help myself. I have a few more bits of this written, and don't worry, I do plan on delving into Jade's past a lot more. It'll probably switch between present and past every other chapter or so. This chapter, though, seemed like a good opening.**

**The movie about the trapped Rugby players is called 'Alive' and it's awesome, you should watch it if you haven't. The whole story is incredible, really. Watch the documentary, too!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Midway through the seventh grade, Jade's father gets a promotion and he gets his own lab to do research in just outside of LA and he goes around smiling all doofily for a few days afterwards. He's really happy about it. The physics department at his old facility is sorely neglected, so to have his own office – nonetheless a whole laboratory - is a big deal.

To him at least. Jade _could _care less, but it would be difficult. She sort of doubts Sophia cares either.

The downside of it, though, Jade is told, is they'll have to move.

Jade is secretly ecstatic. No more stupid asshole boys telling her she's weird. Well – probably new stupid asshole boys telling her she's weird, but they won't have known her since she was little and pathetic and had hair shorter than Winona Ryder in that one movie. Now her hair falls down to just above her shoulders, and she's normal again. Now she's just tough, kick-ass Jade, whose Dad let her buy red hair extensions.

One evening close to moving day, she and her dad are outside at the table on their huge front porch. Dad has bought them a puzzle. Dad likes puzzles, and he likes to work on puzzles with Jade. It's something they can do together without having to talk much.

The puzzle is sort of big and it's all one shade of blue. It's a brain teaser or something. Dad's little finished piece is a lot bigger than hers, which probably means his brain is way bigger or something, but Jade doesn't really care, because if she was as smart as Dad she'd probably kill herself, or at least attempt to, like, a lot.

"I'm sorry we have to uproot you again," Dad says. He fits three more little jigsaws together in rapid succession. "Perhaps you'll like Northridge."

Jade wrinkles her nose. She doesn't know why Dad and Sophia are so worried about her _adjusting_. She's adjusted fine to being _here,_ hasn't she?

"Nothing's worse than here," she tells Dad. "This town sucks eggs. I'm sure the new place will too. No worries, dude."

For some reason, Dad smiles. Sophia probably would have screeched.

Dad is so weird.

* * *

_Oh what a contrast you were_

_To the brutes in the halls_

_My timid young fingers held_

_A decent animal_

- The Shins, "Pink Bullets"

As Jade had proclaimed, Northridge Middle School sort of sucks eggs. It's a school about a half hour outside of Hollywood and all of these bozos act like they're actually _in_ Hollywood. Jade hates the way the girls dress – too bright, too loud, too short. All of the guys are stupid too. There's only two of them in her English class – two! - and they're total lugs, even though it's an Advanced Placement class. At least she still has _that_.

Everyone has already known each other since like infancy and no one really pays her much mind or tries to be her friend. Jade is glad. She doesn't need friends. She needs accomplices! She sits by herself in all of her classes - in the front all the way on the side, by the window. She likes to be by the window anyway. Then she can look at the rolling hills of the football field or out at the playground while the teacher is lecturing on and on and she can pretend she isn't surrounded by _utter freaking morons_.

One day in English the teacher is passing out the papers for the pop quiz they're having. Jade opens up the new, dark blue book bag Dad has bought her, and she notes that she has absolutely no writing utensils.

Not even a marker. Not even a highlighter.

Jefferson.

He's probably gone through her bookbag again – the little shit! He's taken to drawing all over the pristine, white walls of the hallways of their new house. Sophia's confiscated all of his crayons, so he has to resort to other means.

Jade chews on her lip, trying to keep the growl that's building inside her from coming out. The teacher probably has an extra pencil, but she – but she – she _hates_ to ask for things. She hasn't asked for a single thing since she's moved here. It's so stupid, a damn stupid pencil, but if she has to raise her hand and ask for one, it feels like this whole visage that she's built up will crumble. She -

"_Psst! _Hey!" a voice beside her whispers, and it takes everything in her not to jump. She turns slowly to look next to her, where there's a short little girl with huge brown eyes smiling hopefully at her. "Do you need a pencil?"

Jade stares at her for a long moment, but the girl's bright smile doesn't waver. It's sort of creepy. "Yeah," she says finally.

The girl gives a little squeak of happiness – what a weirdo! - and digs around in her bright pink bookbag. She primly hands Jade a new #2 pencil and beams some more.

"Thanks," Jade says finally, looking at her warily as she takes the utensil. The girl gives forth another gleeful squeak and turns back to her own papers.

That's how she officially meets Cat Valentine, who will become her first friend.

* * *

Now that she's met Valentine, it seems like the girl keeps popping up everywhere. It turns out she lives practically right across the street from Jade, and Jade watches her run out of her house late every day to catch the bus. Cat giggles and apologizes to the bus driver and squeezes her way past the irritated-looking students to sit in an empty seat at the back of the bus.

The girl is … something of a wild target, Jade thinks. That's not necessarily a _good_ thing. Jade observes her, and she learns some things.

Valentine has a group of three girl friends who are in the semi-popular clique – they aren't quite the big leagues, but they're pretty up there, their stick-straight hair and expensive ugly butterfly clips a staple of where they stand on the Northridge social hierarchy. It's clear to Jade that these girls don't actually like Cat, and she can't imagine that Cat ever sees them outside of school. Jade hears them giggling together about the ugly puffy pink skirt that Valentine's chosen to wear on a certain day.

"I _told her_ to buy it!" the one blonde bitch says, snorting very sexily into her hands. "I didn't think she actually would!" She throws her head back and laughs. She has a very big, ugly nose, Jade notes.

"So stupid!" cackles the brunette skank. She snaps her gum loudly. Jade wonders how she can fit that whole pack of Bazooka Joe in there. Well, she's probably had a lot of practice stuffing her mouth with gross shit.

Valentine gets teased by other students, too, though the vast population of the school seems to ignore her. How you can ignore Valentine, who is pretty loud, with laughter that pierces the air approximately every four seconds, Jade isn't really sure, but it seems like the rest of the world has got it down pretty good. Sometimes when Cat gets off the bus, a group of boys will making meowing sounds at her. Valentine frowns at them sort of unsurely as she walks past.

A few days after the Pencil Incident, Jade's sitting by herself at a lunch table near the end of the cafeteria, reading a new book Dad had brought home for her and wearing her old Alice in Chains shirt, which is totally the best band ever, and she's actually feeling pretty content by herself, even though it's lunch period, which is the time that all the kids get most obnoxious. Then she feels the table shakes a little bit, and she looks up slowly and dangerously to see the Valentine girl perched in a chair opposite her, leaning with her elbows on the table and, again, beaming at her.

Jade is unimpressed. "What are you doing?" she asks, putting a little more irritation in her voice that necessary.

Valentine's smile falters for the briefest of seconds, but she recovers quickly, like a champ. "I thought I'd come and sit with you," she says in her weird high and sort of airy voice. "I saw that you're sitting by yourself and sometimes I have to sit by myself and it's really not very fun."

Jade looks at her with a critical eye. "Do you want your pencil back or something?"

The girl across from her looks confused for a moment, like she can't remember what a pencil is – Jade wouldn't be surprised - then she breaks out into another smile and giggles. "Oh, no, that's okay! You can keep it! I understand! I always lose my pencils! Now I buy a new pack every weekend. So even if I lose one I still have others to chose from!"

That's really wonderful for her. Also, Christ on a cracker, she's already making Jade's head spin.

"I didn't lose it," Jade tells her somewhat grumpily. "My brother - "

Then she cuts herself off. What is she doing, telling this kid about her brother? Valentine doesn't care or need to know that her stupid baby half-brother is currently obsessed with drawing on the walls and is also the biggest pain in the universe.

Valentine giggles and bounces in her chair. "Do you have a brother? I do too! His name is Michael and he's 17. He has bipolar disorder! For a long time we thought he was schizophrenic. He has four doctors! He - "

"Kid, slow down," Jade interrupts. "Why the hell are you telling me about your brother's medical condition?"

Valentine gets a huge frown on her face. "I don't really know. You said the word 'brother' and I -"

"You don't need to tell people that sort of information right off the bat," Jade tells her.

The girl frowns some more, and nods, like she's taken note of it. "Sorry," she says.

Jade rolls her eyes. "Look, you can't sit here," she informs Valentine.

Valentine's eyes bug out. "Why not? Are you saving seats?"

"Yes," Jade tells her. "For nobody. Go sit with your cheerleader cast-off friends."

Valentine gives Jade the hugest pout she's ever seen. "You don't want to sit with me?"

"Nope," says Jade, picking up her book again.

Valentine sort of hesitates for a few moments more, standing up but not really walking away, and she just looks at Jade for a minute, holding her stupid and absurdly bright pink backpack. "Okay … " she finally says in a fading voice, and wanders off. Jade doesn't look up to see where she goes.

The next day, Valentine tries to talk to her some more in their English class, but Jade refuses to let herself look up from the worksheet she's filling out. She hasn't had friends before and she doesn't need them now, certainly not the class weirdo, of all people. Eventually, Valentine gives up. When Jade sees her on the bus on the way home, Valentine gives her a sad look. Jade looks out the window.

Jade doesn't really remember how much time passes before the next incident with Cat happens. A few weeks, maybe.

One day she's leaving school late. Jeff had given her the stupid flu and she'd missed two days, so she had had to stay after class and make up her stupid math test, which she hadn't studied for anyway and she's probably going to get, like, a C on it, and Dad will act like it's the end of the world and look sad and disappointed and she's going to feel like total shit. She thinks she's missed even the late-bus, but the school is only about a half mile from home anyway, so she leaves through the rear doors and starts to cross the playground, intending on walking home.

As she making her way out, she spies Valentine, sitting on the swings by herself. Seventh graders don't get a recess anymore – they're too old for that baby shit – but they have fifteen minutes after lunch to go and hang out on the school's playground. Cat is the only one in their grade that ever utilizes the jungle gym. She swings on the swings and gives the little fourth graders pushes down the slide. She just hangs herself wide open to be teased, Jade thinks.

Jade pauses to watch her then. There's a big fat kid standing in front of her. A soft breeze is filtering through that day, and Jade catches some of his words as they drift over to her.

"Baby weirdo," the kid is saying. "What are you doing out here? You waiting for your crazy brother to pick you up?"

Jade feels a little flash of anger. This kid should be bullied himself. He shouldn't be picking on some ditzy girl to make himself feel better. She watches the kid pick at Cat for a few minutes more. Cat slowly stops swinging and just dangles there on her swing, sort of frowning at him, not sticking up for herself.

The kid kicks some wood chips up at Cat, getting her ugly pink skirt all dirty. Cat's eyes get all big and watery, like she's about to cry. Jade can see the wateriness even from all the way over where she's standing. Shit. "Baby freak," says the fat kid. "Where's your brother?"

As he continues his name calling, Jade sighs in resignation. She'll probably regret this later.

She drops her backpack to the ground and slowly walks up behind the kid. Cat's eyes keep floating from her back to the brown-haired boy. She looks surprised to see Jade. She sniffles a little.

"Are you going to cry, baby? You weirdo," says the boy. He takes a step closer to Cat and he grabs the chain link of the swing Cat's sitting on. Is he going to _hit her_? Jade takes her final step closer and then she gives him a swift kick to the back of his knee. The kid cries out and drops to the ground unceremoniously.

Jade rolls him onto his back. He starts to yell something so she punches him in the nose to shut him up. Then she washes his face with wood chips until his cheeks are all dirty and smeared with dirt and hopefully blood. He yanks at her hair, so she punches him in the face again and he starts crying and lays there limply, giving up.

Jade stands up, satisfied. The boys spits out some wood chips and sniffles at her in shock.

"_Don't _make fun of people," Jade tells him. "Do it again and I'll break your kneecap."

The boy bursts into fresh tears. "You're a freak!" he tells Jade, standing up and crying. He looks like he wants to punch her, so she clenches her fist and her jaw and glares at him. He backs away and takes off down the courtyard, still crying.

"Go cry to your mother, you big baby!" Jade yells after him. She turns back to Valentine, who's still sitting on her swing, staring at Jade with wide eyes.

Here it comes, Jade thinks, and she waits for Cat to start squeaking and exclaiming about how horrible and mean Jade is.

Instead Cat jumps off of her swing. "How did you do that?" she cries. "That was_ so cool!_"

"Don't you watch any martial arts movies?" Jade asks her. "That's an illegal move, but whatever. You have to sweep the leg."

Cat beams at her. "That was Jimmy Scottsdale," she tells Jade. "He's been mean to me since the fourth grade."

"Well, forget about him," Jade says dismissively. Now she feels sort of unsure about herself.

"Do you want to walk home together?" Cat asks eagerly.

Jade hesitates. She thinks about what she's getting herself into. Oh, hell. "Why not?" she grumbles.

She and Cat go and retrieve Jade's bookbag and then they walk home together, mostly in shocking silence.

From then on, Cat sort of becomes Jade's shadow. Jade supposes she's asked for it. She allows Cat to sit with her at lunch and to trade their spelling books in English. She learns the names of the three popular girls that Cat is semi not-friends with. Melanie, Jackie, and Belinda. Three stupid names. Cat and Melanie have been friends since they were little, Cat tells her, but sometimes she's really mean now.

"Those girls can't stand you," Jade tells her bluntly. Cat frowns all over the place.

As they're leaving English one day, the Three Little Pigs are waiting for them outside of class. "Aww, Kitty Cat's found a new girlfriend!" coos the blonde bitch. Jade isn't really sure which one she is. She doesn't care enough to learn their individual names. Blonde Bitch grabs at Jade's hair and twirls a red extension around her fingers.

"Up yours," Jade says dismissively. She shoves Blonde Bitch into a locker. The Pigs look miffed as Jade grabs Cat's arm and steers her away.

Cat looks upset. "That's Melanie," she tells Jade mournfully. "She was really nice until this year. Then she got picked for the spirit squad. She told me I need to stop being _weird_ or she's going to stop hanging out with me. Do you think I'm weird, Jade?"

Honestl,y Jade actually thinks that, yeah, Cat is pretty freaking weird, but for some _stupid_ reason, she feels really bad, and censors herself. "Sure, you're weird," she says loftily, but before Cat's pout can get any bigger, she adds, "I think it's cool."

Cat giggles and hugs her right there in the hallway. Jade snarls.

* * *

"Hey Jeff," Jade says consideringly one day, as she's laying on the floor in the dining room hovering over her stupid stupid math homework, waving her bare feet in the air, "what's, like, the grossest food there is? Like if you opened up the pantry now, what's the total grossest thing it would be full of?"

Her brother, who's three now, looks up from the coloring book he's ruining with one of Jade's Sharpies. He has permanent marker all over his face and hands. Sophia will probably scream the house down, but what else is new? He scrunches his face up in concentration. Jade's glad he always takes her questions so seriously.

"Shrimp!" he yells finally, after turning purple from thinking so hard. He beams at Jade hopefully.

"Cool," says Jade. She allows him a teeny half-smile. Immensely pleased, Jefferson turns back to his book and continues scribbling.

That weekend she bugs and bugs and bugs Dad and Sophia for chores to do so she can make money off of them. Dad shows her how to use the lawn mower and she mows the front and backyard and she weeds Sophia's dumb old flower beds. The weeds are the only things growing in them so far. Then she dusts the whole house and she unpacks the books in Dad's study and arranges them first by category, then author. That's how she'd want the books arranged in her study, if she had one. Dad has _three_.

Dad and Sophia are pleased and impressed – why wouldn't they be? Dad gives her a _hundred dollars_, which Sophia squawks is way too much, but Dad ignores her for once.

Jade rides her bike (she's really bad at riding a bike – Dad had tried to teach her how to ride one in the fifth grade, the year after he'd gotten custody of her, but he doesn't know how either, so she's really wobbly and it's embarrassing and she's so going to throw the bike away after this excursion) to the grocery store and uses all of her money to buy eight pounds of shrimp. She hides them in the fridge that's down in the basement. Then she steals Sophia's briefcase and loads them all into it and she rides to school early that Monday, wobbly and awkward and tilting dangerously to the side. She probably leaves a leaky trail of shrimp behind.

She picks open Melanie's locker (Jade is nothing if not her mother's daughter) with one of Cat's pink bobby pins that has somehow come into her possession and then she loads all eight pounds of shrimp into the girl's locker. When it's brimming full, she looks at her handiwork in pleasure. She wishes she had a camera to take a picture for Jeff. Then she runs to the bathroom and washes her face and hands like eight times, because she smells _gross_.

Everyone's in the hallway later that morning when blonde bitch Melanie opens her locker and pounds of slimy, lukewarm shrimp rain down on her. Jade makes sure to be standing nearby with Cat as the locker's opened.

Melanie shrieks in dismay as all the kids in the hall laugh at her and shrimp juice drips from her hair. Jade drags Cat by and whispers nastily to Blonde Bitch, "Leave my _little girlfriend_ alone."

Melanie and the remaining Two Little Pigs leave her and Cat alone after that.

**Author's Note: Yay, a flashback! Um, I actually wrote this chapter first ... and I'm not sure if it works in present tense, as I'll probably be switching between things that are happening in the 'now' (show's start) and Jade's past. So, let me know if you guys were confused? Writing in past-tense falls flat when I do it so I'd rather not have to change this.  
**

**Also, god help me, this will be significantly shorter than TYSW. It has to be.  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

_I guess we'll have to go_**  
**

_The neighborhood is onto us_

_Let's join the little kids_

_Throwing rocks in front of us_

_-_ The Arcade Fire, 'The Woodlands National Anthem'

The rest of seventh grade passes pretty quickly, and then summer's here, and Jade simply can't get rid of Cat Valentine, who buys her half of a peace sign necklace and declares them best friends forever. At first Jade hides it in her drawer, but after Valentine cries and caterwauls and makes noise for a week straight, Jade grudgingly makes a big show of putting it on in front of the girl and hiding it down the front of her shirt. Valentine looks happy.

God help her.

June and July pass quickly, and it's one of the most active summers Jade's had, what with stupid Valentine calling her all the time (her brother has a summer job that he leaves for at eight in the morning, and for some reason Valentine thinks it is completely acceptable to call Jade immediately after that with plans to hang out), babysitting her stupid baby brother (they haven't found a nanny for him yet in the new neighborhood – he's sort of a handful) and working on new stupid housework projects with Dad (he feels like they should have bonding activities to do together, and every weekend they do something lame to the house. They've been doing this since the summer after Jade's second turn at fourth grade).

August comes and Jade notes with distress that she's begun to think of Valentine as 'Cat' more and more, instead of referring to her by her surname. One day she goes to a water park with Cat and her family. Cat's brother, Michael, wears his long black trenchcoat the whole time, and Cat almost drowns in three feet of water when they're all in the wave pool.

"I was pretending I was on the Titanic," she tells Jade later as they're sitting in the lifeguard's hut.

"They froze to death, stupid," Jade says.

"That's why I stopped moving," Cat replies, and then looks sad, reliving it or something. Jade rolls her eyes because Cat's insane, but then for the rest of the day Cat's forced to wear a giant orange and white life vest, which is sort of funny and makes up for the fact that she's crazy and annoying.

One day Cat comes over unannounced and overhears Jade singing in the kitchen as she's doing the stupid retarded chores Sophia insists she does. Cat squeals and jumps around and yells about how good Jade is, and begs and pleads Jade to join choir with her once school starts. Jade finally agrees, just to shut her up. Sometimes they mess around on Stepmonster's piano (Dad had let Jade take lessons for a year in fifth grade after they'd made a deal that Jade wouldn't punch anyone all semester. Jade had stuck to it, and Dad had been happy. Stepmonster said he spoiled her), and Jade will play notes and Cat will sing them and she's pretty shocked to find that Valentine actually has a pretty good set of pipes.

Nothing really happens for the first half of eighth grade and it's lame-o city.

She and Cat sing in chorus together but they never get any lead parts or anything remotely resembling lead parts because the drama teacher has a vendetta against Cat on account of her brother, who'd set the school's curtains on fire four years ago. Since Jade's friends with Cat, the teacher hates her too, and Jade fumes not-so-silently when she and Cat lose out on the main solo to Blonde Bitch.

Cat shrugs blithely. "Maybe we'll get solos in the spring," she says. Jade furiously cuts their math homework into slivers with Dad's scissors that she's stolen from his office.

They make friends with Billy, who has been held back twice and has a green mohawk. They sit with him at lunch a lot, and no one really makes fun of Cat that much anymore because Billy is pretty scary, and Jade likes to think she's fairly terrifying herself too. But she's pretty sure Cat is still the weird girl, and that makes Jade the weird girl too.

She doesn't really care, though. What else is new?

December sucks, because Jeff gets sick really bad with strep throat and has to be in the hospital for a whole month and he misses Christmas and has to get his tonsils taken out. It's not like she's _worried _about him or anything, but it just sucks anyway, all right? He's only five! And this new kid transfers to North Ridge and his name is Mark and for some reason the first person he talks to is Jade and he keeps _smiling_ at her.

Mark is pretty cute. He has shaggy brown-blonde hair and wears flannel shirts a lot. He's kind of a goober, but he likes the same books as Jade, which is pretty cool. After the second day that he sits with them at lunch Cat decides she's madly in love with him and – well, that sucks too.

"You can be maid of honor at our wedding," Cat tells Jade when Mark's gone up to throw his trash from lunch away. Billy chokes on his cheese-steak laughing and tries to cover it with a cough. Cat doesn't notice.

"Sounds great, Cat," Jade says.

"Maybe you can play the piano too," Cat says, oblivious to Jade's sarcasm.

"Kill me," says Jade.

Cat looks dreamy and starts drawing hearts on her binder. Mark comes back to the table and winks at Jade as he sits down.

This sucks.

It sucks even more when they have a stupid spring dance and Cat does her crying and pouting and wailing thing until Jade agrees to go too (she wears a black dress, of course) and when she's outside talking with Mark he tries to kiss her and she has to stop him because stupid Cat likes him.

It doesn't really matter what Jade wants because Cat's stupid but she's her only friend and she can't screw with that.

"But I don't like Cat," Mark says, and starts leaning in again. "I like you."

What else is she supposed to do? She lets him kiss her for exactly three seconds and then she punches him in the face.

After that she doesn't think Mark likes her anymore, and he stops sitting with them at lunch and starts hanging out with the popular girls who used to be friends with Cat. At least they technically weren't on school grounds so Dad can't find out and be all upset at her. When Dad gets really upset his sugar level drops and he's already old and sort of fat and if he croaks then she really has no one.

Anyway, Mark ignoring them upsets Cat, but lately it seems like everything's been upsetting Cat. She doesn't talk about it much, but from what Jade can gather, her brother is starting to get … well, _bad,_ again and it's making their parents fight. Cat's mother also may or may not have a drinking problem. She _is_ Irish, after all.

Once Jade goes over there to do a history project with Cat and her dad is screaming at her brother, who just stares at him and goes into the kitchen and starts throwing all of their plates at the wall, one by one, and Cat looks like she's going to cry which is always a terrible thing. Jade quickly grabs Cat up and they go back to Jade's and play Crash Bandicoot in the den all night as Jefferson gazes admiringly at Cat.

Cat wants to see Where the Wild Things Are so Jade makes her father take them to the movies to make Cat happy. Cat wears ridiculous footie pajamas and a Burger King crown on her head and Jade hates her life. Afterward they go to Pizza Express and Cat refuses to take her crown off and Dad is wearing a burgundy checkered suit and did Jade mention she hates her life?

"I can't believe I'm in public with both of you," Jade says. Cat bops her on the head and shouts "LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN!" Dad picks anchovies off his pizza.

One day in March Cat isn't at school and when Jade goes to her house after it's let out, no one answers at the door, even though her mother's car is in the driveway. Feeling a little miffed, she wanders down the street to the park, not really thinking, just wanting to go there, and that's when she finds Cat, whose hair is all messed up and scraggly like she's been chewing on it and pulling on it. She's wearing the same pink shirt as yesterday and has dirt and woodchips all over her knees.

Jade sits on the swing next to her. "Why weren't you at school today?" she demands. "Did somebody jump you? Why do you look all wazzed out?"

Cat just looks at her and starts crying silently, which is really alarming, so Jade pulls her off the swing and instead of knocking at her door again just takes her to her own home.

Sophia is cutting up vegetables in the kitchen for dinner, and she looks up when the girls come in. She does a double-take when she sees Cat's rat's-nest hair and smudged teary cheeks. "Is she alright?" she asks, distressed.

"Fine, we're fine," grits out Jade, and drags Cat past her into the den. "What's wrong with you?" she demands, and Cat just cries silently some more. Jade has to close her eyes and count to five to be able to ask in a nicer tone, "Did something happen?"

Cat sniffles hard and wipes her face, which does nothing because more tears just immediately trek down it. "My brother," she says. "My parents."

"What about your brother and your parents?" Jade demands. "Are they _dead_ or something?"

Cat cries harder.

Oops.

"Cat," Jade says, and shakes the girl's shoulder.

"M-my b-brother - " here Cat starts stuttering a lot, which is annoying to Jade, and also kind of weird and still alarming - "won't take his medication anymore. And my dad gets so mad. Last week Michael _threw_ one of the dogs into the _pool!_"

"Okay … " says Jade slowly.

Cat cries and stutters some more before she gets the next sentence out. "Yesterday my brother locked himself in my parent's bathroom. My dad screamed and hit at the door. My mom was making herself a drink in the kitchen. I was supposed to be doing homework."

Oh, shit.

"Okay," says Jade again. "So did your dad get the door open?"

"H-he went into the g-garage," Cat says. "He t-took out his power drill and said he'd take the door off. Michael started screaming that he better f-f-fu … he better _not_, or he'd do something. Dad yelled some more. I was hiding on the steps so they d-d-didn't see me."

Oh, shit.

Jade waits.

"My mom came up the steps and she w-walked right by me," Cat continues. "She yelled at Michael while Dad took the h-hinges off. Then he … " she starts crying in earnest. "No," she says. "No, no, no."

"Cat!" says Jade, shaking her shoulders. "Tell me what happened!"

"_Michael stabbed my dad!_" Cat screams in her face. "He took the door off and Michael took his army knife out of his pocket and he stabbed my dad!"

"Oh shit," says Jade in dim horror.

Cat cries and screams some more. "He stabbed him in the shoulder! And then they all just stood there! And Michael passed out! And my mom started screaming and there was so much blood Jade! And my mom said 'Oh my god Cat look at what your brother did look at what he did!' " Cat screams in her face again: "He stabbed my dad! Then the ambulance took them both away!"

Oh my god. Oh shit. "Cat," Jade says, trying to be calm even oh god though this is way too big of a problem for her, "calm down. Is your dad okay?"

"I don't know!" Cat cries, wringing her hands, and her words are nearly intelligible because she's crying so hard. "My mom went with them! What if my dad's dead Jade!"

"He isn't dead," Jade says, but Cat is crying too hard now to hear her, probably. She doesn't understand. Her mother just left Cat? No one remembered to take Cat with them? Or maybe her mom is home again and just didn't bother to tell her anything.

Jade doesn't understand. There should really only be a quota of one shitty parent per circle of friends, and Jade's mom has got that covered. "We're going to call the hospital, okay?"

Cat doesn't answer her, just screams and cries some more, pulling at her hair. Some of it comes away with her fingers because she's yanked so hard. Shit. "My dad's dead!" she screams.

"He's not _dead!_" Jade yells back, hoping, and she grabs at Cat's shoulders again to try and make her stop crying, but she won't, and she's actually starting to make a weird hiccuping noise, and god Jade doesn't know what she's supposed to _do_. So she screams for Sophia, and since she doesn't know what else to do, she reels her hand back and then slaps Cat hard across the face.

Thank god, something in movies that actually works in real life too.

Cat chokes out a squeak and her head rocks hard to the side. It stays tilted that way for a long moment before she picks it up to stare at Jade with her huge watery eyes. "Why did you hit me?" she asks in a high voice.

"Sorry," says Jade, just as Sophia bursts into the den, looking vastly alarmed.

Sophia is an adult, so she gets everything sorted out. Jade tells her what had happened as Cat sits on the floor and looks shaken. Sophia's mouth forms a hard line and she leads Cat out into the kitchen, where Jade's father is, having just gotten home for work. Sophia whispers into his ear and Dad turns pale and looks badly upset. He makes Jade and Cat some tea as Sophia carries the corded phone into the other room and makes roughly a thousand phone calls, and then she comes in and talks to Cat, who is much calmer now and seems a little cowed and embarrassed.

"I know my dad isn't really dead," she says. "I'm sorry, Jade."

Cat had been left alone, for about two hours last night, and probably freaking out very badly, until her mother had called and spoken to her from the hospital. Her mother had been pretty intoxicated. She'd had to call a taxi to take her home. She was at home now, still sleeping off her hangover.

Cat's father was fine. He was just being kept overnight on hospital protocol, for observation. He had nine stitches in his shoulder. He had used the hospital phone to try and call his daughter, but she hadn't answered, because she had been freaking out. When Mrs Valentine had come home – still slightly drunk, she admitted to Sophia – she had explained everything to Cat and told her that her brother was staying in the psych wing on the hospital. She'd kissed Cat and told her to go to bed, then went and slept the sleep of the drunk herself for fourteen hours. When she'd woken up she'd assumed Cat had gone to school.

Cat's mom cries on the phone to Sophia. They had all hear it from where they're sitting around the kitchen – Jade, her father, and Cat. Jade and Dad sit hunched with their arms crossed and can't look at anything. Cat drinks her tea.

"Your father is coming home tonight," Sophia tells Cat when she finally comes back into the kitchen. "Your mother is going to pick him up soon. Do you want to talk to her?"

Cat shakes her head.

"Okay," says Sophia, and goes back into the hallway, holding the phone against her chest. A moment later, she comes back out. "Do you want to go with her?"

Cat shakes her head.

"Okay," Sophia says again, and once more floats back out into the hallway. She come back out and gives Cat a bright smile. "Cat, you can stay here for dinner. Right, Alan?"

Dad nods emphatically.

Jade drags the still-silent Cat out of the room and lets her into Jeff's playroom to pick out a Disney movie to watch, which she would usually tell Cat was a rare treat but she keeps her mouth shut right now because Cat might actually be crazy. Cat remains quiet and she takes a long time to pick out The Rescuers Down Under, and then Jade drags her back into the den and they watch that, Cat a little lump of clay beside her for the first half hour until she finally smiles at something Bernard the mouse has said and Jade feels her heart-rate slowly going back to normal.

Jeff is doing his crazy Jade-please-I-have-a-question dance in the den's doorframe, and Jade glares at him repeatedly, but he doesn't go away, so eventually she stands up and says, "Just a sec," to Cat. She drags Jeff off into the hall. "_What_?"

Jeff looks nervous and small and upset. "Why'd you hit Cat?" he asks in a whisper, and Jade blinks, because she has no idea how he's seen that. "And why was she crying?"

"Um," says Jade, and thinks. "She's sad about her family."

"Oh." Jeff looks glum. "But why'd you hit her?"

Jade tries hard to think of a way to explain this to Jeff that won't make him run up and slap at Sophia every time she's sniffling at her soap operas. "Um," she says again. "Sometimes when people get really sad they can't stop crying. So I had to surprise her to make her stop. So I had to slap her."

Jeff furrows his brow. "Why didn't you pop a balloon?"

"Oh, idiot, I forgot we just had an arsenal of balloons in the closet," Jade sneers, and then cuffs him on the head to show that she's not too mad at him. "Now are you going to shut up and be good and watch the movie with us or do I have to stick you in the washing machine again?"

"I'll watch the movie," says Jeff, switching from solemn to happy in a second. He bounds back into the room and sits beside Cat, who puts her arm around him without looking away from the screen. Jeff beams.

Later that night after they've all eaten dinner, Cat's father comes to collect her. Cat literally climbs up him and hugs him so tight Jade's sure she must have dislodged her stitches, but Mr. Valentine doesn't even wince.

"Baby girl," he says, hugging Cat back. "I'm so sorry."

Sophia stands around like a giant stupid Azerbaijan (Azerbajanese?) bear with Jade's dad lurking behind her, looking like the deer carcass she's killed and forced to marry her. "George," she says to Cat's dad (George? Ew!), "can we talk?"

"Of course," says oh god ew George.

"I think Cat should stay here for the night," Sophia says, and Cat makes an excited sound, because tomorrow's a school day and they can never have sleepovers on school nights.

George looks upset, so Sophia shoos Jade and Cat away. Cat, who's getting back to normal (for her, that is – for everyone else, it's back to really really weird), grabs at Jeff and they go off to find another movie. Jade lurks in the hallway and listens to the grown-ups talk.

Jade's dad actually speaks, and he doesn't even stutter! She feels proud of him, even though none of this is an ideal situation.

"I think your daughter may have a … problem," Dad says. "I think she needs to see a psychologist. Occurrences like these can have a profound affect on children. I think Caterina already shows signs of an anxiety disorder."

"And George, your wife is an alcoholic," says Sophia, the queen of tact.

Cat's dad agrees on both accounts. Jade listens to him tell her parents that his wife had been doing good for a very long time, but had started to slip as Michael got worse and Cat's behavior had gotten increasingly erratic.

"Of course her behavior has gotten erratic!" Sophia says, sounding mad, but this time, instead of making fun of her in her head, Jade just thinks, _good_.

Cat stays with them for three whole nights, into the weekend, and she totally destroys Jade's bedroom and also accidentally dumps her collection of dead bugs on the floor and cries, but not hysterically again. Jeff eats three of them. On Friday neither of the girls go to school and Sophia makes them pink pancakes and goes into work late. Jade and Cat stay in their pajamas all day and Jade lets Cat put on the Drake and Josh marathon. Josh is getting skinny, and Jade doesn't know how she feels about that.

Then Cat has to go to the hospital too, and she's away for four whole days, which sucks because that means that Jade's alone at lunch with just Billy, who is weird. She sort of wishes she had other friends, even though friends are tiring. Cat is more than enough, but when she's gone, Jade's reminded of how lonely she is.

Jade gets into a fight with their drama teacher while Cat's away because they've lost out on the solos again and she has to go sit in the principal's office and have Dad leave work early to come and pick her up. Dad looks upset, but not really with her.

"You shouldn't scream at your teachers," Dad tells her.

"But she's an idiot," Jade says.

Dad doesn't disagree, and he takes her to get frozen yogurt. "Don't tell Sophia," he says, and Jade's so pleased with him that she doesn't even scream at him for eating sugar.

Cat comes back and she had a bottle of pills and she has to take one every morning and every night. The pills are pink and they make Cat happy and she doesn't get so upset during school anymore, not even when she finds out neither of them are going to be in the choir production and Blonde Bitch gloats all over the cafeteria about it.

Jade gets a flier in the mail for a school called Hollywood Arts and she mulls over this for a while before she shows it to Cat. They go online and look at the school and Cat squeals about how brightly colored the hallways are.

They spend the rest of March and most of April neglecting their homework and practicing for their Hollywood Arts audition. Jade's going to play the piano and she and Cat are going to sing a Carole King song together. Dad looks upset when Jade brings home a math test with a C minus.

She and Cat take a taxi out to Hollywood because Jade doesn't want her parents to know yet and they perform their song and then two days later she gets a phone call saying they're in. Cat screams all over the neighborhood.

Dad is halting about letting her go to Hollywood Arts. "Is this really what you want to do with your life?" he asks her. "Do you think this will provide you with a lucrative career?"

"This is all I want," Jade says emphatically. "And Cat's parents said yes! Are you going to take me away from Cat? I'll have no one." She turns up the angst: "Everyone gets taken away from me."

Dad looks upset and like he's going to relent, which is what he always does when she guilt-trips him. But then Stepmonster cuts in and is horrible and says, "It's very expensive, Jade. Do you know how much our mortgage is just on this house? We'll have to discuss this later."

Later that night Jade creeps around outside Dad's bedroom door and listens to them argue about it.

" - don't really think so, but she wants to go," she hears Dad says.

"Alan, you can't just give her whatever she wants because you feel badly that you missed out on the first eight years of her life," Stepmonster says. Jade blinks.

"That's not what I am doing," says Dad, sounding distressed.

"It's too expensive."

"I know that," says Dad, and Jade thinks, well, that's it, but the next day Dad and Stepmonster sit her down and Dad says that she can go to Hollywood Arts if that's what she really wants to do. Jade lets herself scream a little.

"I expect you to remain focused on your studies," Dad says, patting her awkwardly as Jade hugs him and then dances around the kitchen. "And you'll have to get a job when you're old enough. But I will pay for your tuition."

"But no more luxuries," Sophia adds, and looks at both of them darkly like she knows they happily go to the movies and eat pizza and go to the mall every night when she's working late.

"That's cool," says Jade. "That's fine. I'll do whatever."

Dad still looks a little distressed and like Jade's throwing her life away by not wanting to become a mad scientist like he is but he doesn't really say anything else negative on the subject. Jade spends the next month madly pulling up her grades to make him happy and she even manages to get a B in stupid Algebra for him. Dad gets her and Cat tickets for a Goo Goo Dolls concert (shut up, okay, Jade's mom had liked them and they're like the only band that she and Cat remotely have in common) and looks guilty when Sophia frowns all over the place.

"But I promised her back in January," Dad says.

"And who exactly is going to take them to this?"

Dad looks hopeful. "Well," he says. "Darling - "

"I have to work."

Dad looks badly upset. He looks badly upset all throughout the next week as Jade and Cat run around screaming and picking out their outfits for the concert. He looks badly upset as he drives them to the arena and Cat won't sit still in the backseat and keeps clambering over the console to turn the radio up louder. He looks badly upset throughout the whole show and he puts his ear plugs in and he asks Jade in mortification, "What is this, death metal?"

Poor Dad. He doesn't know anything about music.

Someone spills a beer on him, but Jade isn't too upset because he's wearing his burgundy suit again and maybe it won't come out in the drycleaning, so she doesn't try to punch them. Cat tries to crowd-surf (Dad looks badly upset) and gets drops on her head. It's one of Jade's favorite memories.

Then it's summer time again. Jade turns fifteen. Cat's parents are better now and they buy Jade a pink birthday cake when she and her brother go over the next day. Jeff puts his face in it.

It's going to be a good summer. A new year and a new school.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**Author's Note: Now we're back to following Chapter One, just so there's no confusion.  
**

**I suck at Beck/Jade.**

****_Let's go away for a while_

_You and I, to a strange and distant land_

_Where they speak no words of truth_

_But we don't understand anyway_

- Weezer, 'Holiday'

There's a bit more in between, but Jade's been up late thinking about all these silly retarded memories and why is she annoying herself thinking about what a dumb little kid she'd been when they're all basically on paid vacation from school?

It's early morning now, and Cat is jumping on her bed.

"Wake up, wake up!" Cat chants, bouncing, drawing Jade rather unhappily out of her sound sleep. "It's our first day! Let's go exploring!" She bounces some more.

"I'llkillyoustopjumping," Jade slurs, pulling her pillow over her head.

When a final hard leap, Cat flies into the air and lands on her knees, bouncing and rolling so that she's up at the top of Jade's bed beside her. "Jaa_aa_ade," she singsongs.

"_Caaaat_," Jade grumbles back dangerously, voice muffled by the pillow.

Cat giggles happily. "Come on, come on! We're in South America! Let's go let's go!"

Jade lowers the pillow a few inches to glare at the smaller girl, still clad in her Disney pajamas. "I was asleep," she growls.

Cat makes her pleading face, the one where she pouts and opens her eyes up so wide they practically swallow her whole face. "Please get up?" she says in breathless sorrow, then shakes with excitement. "I wanna go out! We don't have rehearsal today! We can do what we want! I wanna go out!"

Christ. It's like if a dog could talk.

Jade pulls the pillow off of her face and looks around their shared hotel room with the considering and blurry eyes of one who has just been rudely woken up by an evil redhead. A quick glance to her phone, charging on the nightstand, tells her that it's just past nine o'clock. Vega is still asleep, curled up on her own bed. How Cat's squeaks and squeals have failed to wake her, Jade doesn't really know, nor does she care.

Vega had sulked and hidden in their room all last night while the rest of them had hung out downstairs in the hotel's lobby until late, still upset at having near-blinded a politician. Jade sends her a little evil smirk, remembering. Then she turns back to Cat. "Fine," she says. "Don't wake Vega up."

"Kay kay!" trills Cat happily, then looks around, chastened. She puts her finger to her lips for a moment, then says in a much more subdued tone, "Kay kay."

Jade rolls herself out of bed and she and Cat squish into the bathroom and change and brush their teeth in tandem. Before the trip Cat had dragged her to the mall and they'd bought matching sundresses, much to Jade's chagrin. Hers is purple, and Cat's is black.

Just kidding. It's pink, of course.

Jade applies her usual pound of eyeliner as Cat peers out of the bathroom at the still-sleeping Vega, giggling anew. Vega's gross feet are poking out of her blanket. Uck. She doesn't even have her toenails painted.

"Shut _up!_" Jade hisses, leaning out of the doorframe, and thwacks Cat for good measure.

"I am shutting up!" squeals Cat in a totally not-quiet tone. "I won't wake her! It will be just us today, right Jade?" She looks happy, and that makes Jade feel sort of good, too. She's glad that Cat doesn't need Vega around all the time. Jade is still good enough for her.

They leave their hotel room and head down to the lobby, Cat chattering on and looking through her guidebooks and crashing into potted plants. "Shopping, shopping!" she squeals. Jade uses one hand to steer the girl down the hallway and uses the other to text Beck on her PearPhone, but she isn't surprised when he doesn't respond. If they don't have to be at school, Beck won't get up before noon on a good day. As it is, she usually has to threaten him to wake him up on time when she sleeps over.

She's got a few tricks to get him out of bed. Some of them he likes, and those things end up with them being late for class anyway, you know, and some of them he doesn't like so much, and those things usually end up with Beck with plastic spiders in his hair and Jade getting the silent treatment all day. Either way, these things are usually worth it.

They spy Puppet Boy drinking organic coffee and reading out in the lobby like a nerd. Cat bounces around a bit. "Oh, let's bring Robbie with us!" she cries, like Gepetto is her puppy or something. He basically is.

Jade makes a noise like she's in pain. Dorkasaur looks up and smiles at them.

Cat's dragging her over. "Please Jade!" she squeals. "We need a strong man for protection!"

"Yeah, okay. So ... why should we bring the Puppet Master?"

Shapiro looks scrawny and offended.

Cat beams at him, ignoring Jade. "Hi Robbie! We're going shopping! Want to come?"

"Sure," says Shapiro, giving Cat one of his not-at-all-thinly-veiled looks of longing. "You females look nice."

Cat preens. Jade rolls her eyes. "No one cares what you think."

Shapiro pouts a little. He asks, "Where's Beck?"

Jade gives him a not-at-all-thinly-veiled look of her own. Hers is one of contempt. "He's still sleeping," she says. "He'll be sleeping all day. Do you know Beck?"

"Jade kept him awake all last night," Cat says, and giggles wildly. Shapiro looks scandalized and turns an ugly shade of puce.

Jade smirks. He doesn't need to know that she, Cat, Beck, and Andre had just played a rousing game of Apples to Apples after he had gone to bed.

She spends most of their vacation down-time with Cat and Shapiro. They hit the city on the first day and Shapiro gawks around at everything and Cat translates and uses SinJin's credit card to buy them all knitted ponchos. Jade feels proud of Cat for using her feminine wiles. SinJin doesn't know what he gets himself into.

Well, he'll know when he gets his credit card bill.

Jade convinces Cat to put her wiles to further use and talk a vendor into letting Jade buy a carton of hand-rolled cigarettes. Dork Bait looks horrified, then considering.

"I wonder what sort of paper these are wrapped in," he says when they're eating lunch at an outdoor restaurant. He holds a cigarette by its filtered end as though it's contaminated. "Did you know some of the very first cigarettes came fr- "

"Hey Robbie," Jade interrupts him brightly. He shoots her a mistrustful glance, looking at her quizzically, and Jade waits in silence until he finally says, "Yes?"

"No one cares."

Shapiro pouts. Cat pats him consolingly, then steals his soy shake.

She smokes a whole pack of her cigarettes and holes up in Beck's room for the night, kicking Andre out to hang with Cat and Vega. Shapiro is off spending quality time with his puppet. Jade hadn't allowed it to bring him out with them, and she guesses they'd missed each other. Beck frowns and hems and haws and worries about his solo. He makes her practice with him, which is lame. She takes her shirt off, and they stop practicing.

"I missed you today," Beck tells her, _later,_ playing with her hair. "You could have woken me up."

Jade guiltily thinks of Cat's happy face today and how much she's been ignoring her this semester. "Yeah," she says. "Cat wanted to hang out, though."

"So how was that, playtime with Cat and Robbie?" Beck asks in a doofy voice, like Cat isn't her best friend and Shapiro isn't his.

Jade grunts. "Oh, tons of fun. You know how I enjoy watching Macaulay slaver over Cat like a pathetic dog."

Beck looks oddly offended. "Cat would be so lucky to get a guy like Robbie!"

"Oh, okay," Jade scoffs.

"Robbie is a good guy," Beck insists.

"He's still a massive loser."

Beck frowns, but they've had arguments over the patheticness of Shapiro before, so he gives up and changes the subject. "Do you want to do something tomorrow?" he asks her instead.

"Sure, I guess," Jade says. "Cat wants to go exploring."

Beck makes a face because he still thinks Cat is weird and then quickly tries to hide it. "Ah, sure," he says. "I was thinking we could go down to the pool. Tori wants to check it out. She says - "

"Oh, you already have plans with Vega?" Jade snits before she can help herself. "Why'd you ask me what I wanted to do if you're going to be hanging out with her?"

"I'm not hanging out with her," Beck says. "I just said she found out about it. I want to spend time with you." He adds: "You ditched me today!"

Jade just growls. "You didn't answer your phone until three!"

"I was sleeping," Beck says, looking guilty.

"Well, we can't go swimming," Jade snaps. "Cat can't swim. She gets overexcited and starts to drown."

"Okay." Beck looks glum. "Well, I'll do whatever you want."

"Whatever."

Beck frowns some more. "Why are you getting mad at me?" he asks.

"I'm _not_ getting mad. I'm always mad."

"Yeah," Beck mutters. "You're always mad."

Jade glowers at him, but he just rolls over onto his stomach to face her better, playing with a long strand of her hair. "I don't want to fight," he says softly.

"Then don't be stupid," she wants to say badly, but restrains herself somehow. Instead she just says, "Me neither."

They cuddle on his bed and she lets him watch Full House reruns in Spanish. Andre sleeps in the hallway.

* * *

The next day, Beck, Andre, and Tori are going swimming. Shapiro trails after them around the hotel, looking nervous at the thought of Vega in a bikini. Beck and Andre are laughing at some idiotic thing Vega's said as Shapiro hangs back. He never knows what to do with himself.

Since she's still in a good mood, Jade takes pity on him. "Shapiro," she calls out. "Come on. We need our guide. We're going exploring."

Cat looks proud of her. She and Dorky the Dinosaur pour over their maps of scenic Uruguay. "I'd like to bring home a pound of rice for my mother," Shapiro says happily. Jade rolls her eyes.

They sneak away without the chaperoning of Sikowitz and take a taxi cab to the outskirts of the city and wander through the farmland. It's actually sort of pretty. Puppetmaster frowns around and worries about bandits as she and Cat exclaim over everything.

"Are you sure Sikowitz said we can go off by ourselves?" Shapiro asks skeptically, unfolding his map some more. He's wearing his poncho and a giant sombrero and is all laden down with his and Cat's backpacks and his glasses keep sliding down his nose. He looks, in a word, idiotic. It brings her joy.

"Yep," says Jade shortly, and Cat looks guilty because Sikowitz has said no such thing and thinks they're probably off singing in the basement or something. Shapiro looks a little doubtful, but then Cat is yelling happily over something and grabbing at his arm and he forgets to be a wet blanket for two seconds.

Cat tosses their map into the air and leads them down the farmland trails. She holds Jade's and Robbie's hands and pulls them along when she feels as if they're moving too slow. Sometimes some of Cat's excitement rubs off on her, and since it's just her and Cat and dumb old goony Robbie, Jade doesn't really have to worry about censoring herself now. She blows a dandelion into Cat's face and Cat screams in laughter as the tiny grey puffs catch in her eyelashes.

Robbie timidly pets at the nose of a raggedy old cat that's sunning itself on the side of the dirt road. "I wish I had a pet," he says sadly, and then sneezes all over it. It hisses and swipes at him.

"I wish you had a pet too," Jade tells him. "You'd die of cat dander."

Shapiro gives her a dour look, then snaps a picture of her with his stupid camera. Jade hits him and knocks his hat off.

"Jade!" he whines. "I don't have any sunblock!"

They stop at a farm and pet some of the animals. It doesn't sound like much, but it's pretty cool. The sun is hot on Jade's back, Cat's laughing, Robbie looks incredibly stupid and is turning pinker by the moment, and Jade feels, you know - pretty good.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

**Author's Note: Everyone, I know I should be finishing TYSW, and it's really nearly done, but there is a scene in it that I'm stressing very much over so I'm writing Teen Spirit fluff instead. Obviously this one takes place in the past again.**

_Miss the bus to stay you  
Miss the bus to stay you  
Miss the bus Tuesday  
Miss the bus to stay cool _

- The Replacements, 'Fuck School'

Hollywood Arts is crazy.

There are kids with shaved heads and kids breakdancing out in the parking lot and kids playing guitar in the hallway. Jade's got a new black-and-purple messenger bag and she's got Cat by her side and Cat's been really good and listened to her and hasn't worn her puffy pink tulle skirt on the first day. Jade loves everything.

She stands very tall beside Cat and looks menacing during freshman orientation and glares around at everyone who dares to give Cat, who's squeaking over something every four seconds, the side-eye. No one is going to dare to tease Cat at this new school. Jade thinks that if they can't be cool, they're going to be feared.

She and Cat get assigned lockers right next to each other and Jade's locker is sort of jank and has a rather large dent in it by the lock and it sort of only opens when it wants to but that's okay, she'll figure it out later. She's got all her books anyway and she's memorized the blueprints of the entire school so that she and Cat won't be late to anything.

Cat's not in Jade's math and science classes, and for some reason she isn't in her English class either. Cat is just in regular old college stream English and not AP like Jade's filed out for her on her schedule. Cat belongs in Advanced Placement, Jade thinks, even though she really can't spell sometimes. It's just that Cat gets really worked up while she's writing and can't be bothered with punctuation sometimes. Jade's going to take her down to the principal's office at the end of the day and get this all sorted out, she tells Cat.

Their first class is Acting Improvisation, though, and they have that together. Cat has wandered off to find the bathroom and Jade makes sure she writes the classroom number on Cat's wrist just in case she forgets that she's holding her schedule and goes off to find it without her. She gets there just after the warning bell rings and the teacher isn't even there yet. There's only a handful of students gathered in the class so far, and of course there's a stupid scrawny boy sitting right in the front window seat which is where Jade always likes to sit.

She goes up to the boy and glowers and tells him to park it somewhere else. He stares up at her with his mouth open for a bit. He's got huge Buddy Holly glasses on his face and he's carrying a doll or something with him. Jade glares some more and the boy quickly moves.

He stands by her desk awkwardly for a moment as she sits, shoulders all hunched over, looking like he wants to say something, but then a homeless man wanders into the classroom and starts yelling about the art of theatre and Buddy Holly looks scared and makes a beeline to sit in the back of the classroom. Jade wonders where the hell Cat is. She saves her a seat anyway, glaring out and anyone who dares to try and take the desk next to her.

The homeless man is actually their teacher and his name is Mr. Sikowitz. He tells them all that he's thirty-two even though Jade thinks he looks way older and he drinks milk out of a coconut with a pink bendy straw. His voice is broken at volume ten and he waves his arms about dangerously always and he picks Jade first to get up on stage and introduce herself by using only nouns starting with the letters of her first name. He claps loudly for her when she's done. "Ah, Jade," he says. "I can tell you're going to be a very strong creative force."

Jade scowls at him as she sits back down. She wants to cry, "What's that supposed to mean?" but she doesn't want to sound like Cat so she just stabs at her notebook with a pen. Mr. Sikowitz beams at her and then calls the next person of his choice to the stage, a tan boy with dark hair and dark eyes and a cool jacket whose name is Beck or Brock or something. He keeps looking at Jade as he talks, which irritates her. Where the hell is Cat? Jade stabs at her notebook some more.

Her next few classes go by. Hollywood Arts isn't actually as liberal as she's thought, and they still have to take stupid mandatory classes, like Math and Science. Retarded! So she sits through science second period and Algebra II during fourth (third period, she and Cat have a playwriting class together, which is cool, even though the teacher is super old) and then finally it's time for lunch.

Jade's barely found an empty table out in the courtyard to sit at when Cat comes bounding over to her with Buddy Holly in tow. Oh Christ.

"Jade," Cat says happily, "this is Robbie!"

Robbie stares at her in terror, probably remembering her from this morning. Jade feels happy. Also, _Robbie?_ Is he _five_ or something?

Cat continues blithely, bouncing a little and spilling some of her soup on the ground, "He's in English with me! He's new too! He's going to sit with us, okay?"

Jade growls. She says, "You aren't supposed to be in that English class."

"I know, but at least I got to meet Robbie," Cat says, talking like Buddy Holly isn't right next to her. "He's so funny! And isn't his puppet cute?"

Robbie looks small and nervous. "It's actually a ventrilo-"

"Shut up," Jade tells him.

Cat sits and pats the seat beside her. "I know that Jade seems really mean," she tells him gently. "And she is really mean!"

"Cat, sitting _right here,_" Jade snarls.

Cat looks happy when Robbie sits down next to her. "But she's also my best friend and super fun. Last week we went to get our nails done and she said the funniest thing! _Oh!_" Cat hits Buddy Holly's shoulder (he looks perpetually startled by her), and starts to tell him a long-winded story that will probably lead to nowhere.

Jade sighs and unwraps her sandwich.

* * *

Time passes pretty quickly after they've started Hollywood Arts. Every month Sikowitz puts on a small play for each of his individual Improv classes. He really is a rather prolific fellow, Jade thinks, not like she'd ever actually tell anyone that. They aren't really a big deal, just held on a Friday after school on the last of the month, and some of the time the parents don't even come, so Jade doesn't really feel too badly when Dad can't get off work at the end of September to come and see her first one. Cat's parents come and they bring Jeff, though, which makes up for it.

Cat had missed the first day of Improv because she got lost trying to find the bathroom and Mr. Sikowitz makes her read a poem backwards in their second class to make up for it. It's pretty amusing, and makes Jade happy. He gives her and Cat big parts in his screenplay about a group of dognappers in Rome. Beck or Brock or Brian plays lead opposite her and he's pretty annoying, always leaning on things to talk at her and looking cool with his huge combat boots all untied like that's impressive or something.

Cat thinks he's just so cute and that his eyes are dreamy. For the first two weeks Jade sort of thinks its going to be another Mark situation and is depressed over it, even though Beck or Brock or Brian is totally stupid and there's no way she likes him or cares what he thinks about her, but then one day Cat just sighs and says, "He looks like Aladdin. You should go out with him."

Aladdin? _Aladdin! _Jade had thought she hid all of Cat's Disney movies at the end of summer. Had Cat gone into her backyard and dug them up? She knew she shouldn't have told Michael what she'd done with them. Once again, Jade asks God for help, but as usual, he doesn't. She starts calling Dark Eyes Aladdin in her head even though by now she's figured out that his name is really Beck and not Brock or Brian.

"He's totally gross," she tells Cat decisively.

Cat just slurps her juice box knowingly and looks at her.

* * *

"You're late for my class, Miss West," Mr Sikowitz says, sweeping past her closely in the hall one morning. He smells like moth balls.

"_You're_ late for your class," Jade sneers, because she can't think of anything better to say, and kicks her locker once more and begins stalking after him. Stupid locker. Well, whatever, she doesn't need her math book anyway.

Mr. Sikowitz beams at her as he turns into the classroom. "A great and terrible beauty, as always," he says.

Jade sort of feels like he's just quoted teen literature, and that's weird, so she doesn't say anything else and collapses into her normal seat beside Cat.

"Did you get your locker open?" Cat asks her.

Jade grunts.

"Guess not," Cat says, happy for no reason at all. "That's okay! Want to borrow my English homework?"

"Hi Jade," says Aladdin moonily from across Cat.

Jade grunts.

Aladdin flips his hair and leans on his desk to gaze at her with more intensity. "Locker trouble?" he asks conspiratorially. "I can help you with that."

"Why are you talking to me?" Jade snaps.

Aladdin smiles his heavy-lidded smile at her. "I like you," he says boldly.

God help her.

Aladdin leans some more. "Want to sit together at lunch?"

"No," says Jade.

"We sure do!" says Cat. Jade shoots her an evil look. Cat just smiles beatifically and eats some candy.

Sikowitz pauses in drawing on his chalkboard. "Mister Oliver," he says, turning. Now he's got chalk smudges on his already-stained cardigan. "Please commence wooing Miss West after class. Since you're so eager to project your voice, take to the stage. You can lead our group this morning. Queue scene -" he pauses for effect - "you have just been rejected by the girl you adore."

Aladdin looks unhappy.

Mr. Sikowitz might just be her favorite teacher.

* * *

Aladdin does come and sit with them at lunch that day, which is annoying, but not any moreso than being alone at the table with Cat and stupid Robbie Shapiro. Robbie is a big old dork (actually, at this point, he's still pretty short, so really, he's a small old dork) who stammers a lot and only says witty things through his insufferable ventriloquist dummy. He's nice to Cat, though, which is okay, and Cat seems to like him well enough, so Jade's - you know, stuck with him too.

Cat's ridiculous. They're supposed to be reinventing themselves and she goes and makes friends with the weirdest kid in school.

Jade glares at Aladdin anyway when he comes and stands over their table holding his lunch tray.

"I told you I didn't want to sit with you," she snits.

Aladdin pulls out a chair next to Buddy Holly and makes a big display of opening his milk carton. "Maybe I'm here for my friend Robbie," he says pointedly, and Buddy Holly stares at him in shock. "Hi, by the way," he says to Robbie. "I'm Beck. We're in history together. You know. And Improv."

"Hello," says Robbie awkwardly, and then knocks his soy milk over with his elbow. Cat giggles at him sympathetically and helps him mop it up with her napkins.

"I'm always spilling things," she tells Puppet Master consolingly. "Last week I dropped a whole plate of spaghetti on Jade's bed! Hey Jade, remember - "

"_Yes,_ Cat, I remember," Jade growls. Aladdin puts his head in his hands and slurps his milk through his straw, still gazing at her. Jade scowls back at him.

Cat smiles around happily.

* * *

Mr. Sikowitz bursts in on the first day of November, yelling, "Code tangerine! Children! Get down! There is an armed gunman in the school!"

Everyone screams. Cat climbs under Jade's desk and clutches her leg. Beck – no, no, _Aladdin _- stands protectively over them, looking skinny. Buddy Holly triggers his inhaler. Jade just looks unimpressed because she knows Sikowitz is screwing with them. Code _tangerine?_

Mr. Sikowitz beams around at them and leans heavily on his desk. "Just kidding," he says. He waves his arms about spastically. "And, scene!"

"Why would you do that?" Beck says incredulously, going over and patting Shapiro consolingly. Shapiro wheezes.

Mr. Sikowitz smiles some. "November fools!" he cries.

"Cat," Jade complains. "Go away. You're ripping my fishnets."

Cat squeaks.

* * *

One day at lunch Beck is sitting with them and he's wearing a tattered old Alice N Chainz T-shirt. Jade almost drops her soda in jealousy.

"Where did you get that shirt?" she demands. "I've never seen that shirt."

It's the first time Jade's spoken to him of her own volition. Beck beams at her.

"It's my dad's," he says. "He likes them."

"They're my mom's - " Jade stops herself. "I like them. I've never seen a shirt like that. That was before they got signed."

Beck looks happy. He says, "My dad works in promotion. He used to work with a lot of record companies." He pauses for effect, then says, "Once he got his picture taken with Jerry Cantrell."

"Oh my God," says Jade, and puts her head on her hands to stare at him. "Tell me more."

"Well," says Beck, and starts leaning.

* * *

After school that day, Cat's thrumming with energy as they wait outside the building for her father to pick them up. It's very annoying.

Cat shakes excitedly. Jade ignores her. She lets her bookbag slide from her shoulder and rests it on the ground beside her. She checks to make sure she's brought home her Algebra book, Sikowitz's new screenplay. It's got Beck's phone number scrawled at the top of it in his small, block-lettered handwriting – not like she's actually going to call him ever, or anything.

Cat makes a squeaking sound, wanting attention. "Jade," she says with intensity.

Jade inspects her nail polish studiously. "Hm," she says to her fingernails.

Cat pretends to keel over onto the bike rack.

Jade raises an eyebrow at the space beside Cat; she picks at a hangnail.

Cat throws herself onto the pavement in great theatrics. "Ja-_ade_," she wails into the concrete.

"Oh God, what?" Jade yells, because Cat is being embarrassing.

Cat flings herself onto her back, beaming. She kicks her legs into the air – she's wearing her pink jeans today. Thank god for small favors.

"You love Beck!" she shouts joyfully.

Jade almost keels over onto her bike rack herself. "WHAT? I DO NOT!" she roars.

Cat spasms on the ground some more. "You love Beck!" she cries once again, horrifically happy. "You like Aladdin!"

Jade kicks her. "I DO NOT!" she roars. She kicks Cat again.

Cat jerks, throwing her hand over her face, pretending to die and making horrible noises. Then she slowly slides her hand away and flails a bit more. "Yeah you do," she grins.

Jade growls. "Get off the ground, you're making a scene." She adds, "And I _do not._"

"Do so," says Cat, and in one movement leaps to her feet. She beams some more. "Do so do so," she says again.

"I like his _T-shirts,_" Jade specifies. "And you have dirt in your hair."

Cat just continues to look happy. She fidgets around until her father's truck rumbles into the parking lot. Jade hits at her a few times to try and stop her from being joyous and stupid, but Cat just bounces away.

"How was school?" Mr. Valentine asks as the girls climb into the backseat.

Cat throws her head back. "Jade likes a boy!" she hollers.

Jade regrets their entire friendship.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

**AN: Pretty immediately follows the last chapter.**

Beck's house is big and modern and cool. In his living room, the TV takes up practically the whole wall. His bedroom is really messy, however, which is annoying, because Jade likes to keep her things in order. He has a rather large collection of plaid shirts hanging everywhere and lots of posters. He also has a pretty torn stuffed elephant on his bed, which Jade makes fun of him for, making a note to hide Secret Bear in her closet if Beck should ever come over to her house.

Not like she'll ever let him, probably. One glance of her father looking eternally chagrined at life and Jefferson running around with his Superman cape and clogging the toilet every two hours will probably leave Beck utterly disinterested in her.

Beck's father, vastly unlike hers, is pretty cool. He's a lot younger than her own dad, in his late thirties, and he works in promotion, helping design record covers. He wears his work shirts untucked with his tie off and rolls up his shirtsleeves and he's always in the kitchen drinking whiskey. He wears four nonworking watches and has a pierced ear. His hair is pretty shaggy, like Beck's.

"Wow, Beckett," he says, smiling a little and leaning on the counter (oh, that's where he gets it, Jade thinks), "you finally managed to get a girl," when Jade comes over for the second time and he's home.

Beck immediately transforms from ultra-cool and collected to sulky and insecure around his family, which is also cool to see, hunching his shoulders a bit and staring poutily at the countertop.

"Oh, shut up," he grumbles.

Beck's dad smiles nicely at her. He shakes her hand and asks her name. "You're always welcome here, sweetheart," he says, and drinks some more of his drink. "You kids want to get a pizza?"

"Hell yeah," says Jade, happy, and she and Beck's father argue over toppings (pepperoni, definitely no mushrooms, but peppers are acceptable), while Beck continues to look irritated.

"Sorry about him," he says later, when they're sitting up in his room (Jade's wrinkled her noise and shoved a questionable pile of clothes off his bed). "He's such a tool. Did he creep you out?"

Jade thinks of some of the grotty men that her mom had been with (the one guy had always been touching her hair, like, fucking gross, I'm _seven,_ lay off me), and has to stop herself from snorting at him. "No," she says. "He's cool."

"Okay," says Beck. He looks more heartened now, and is slowly slipping back into his normal school persona of Inspector Leans-on-Things.

"So what about those Layne Staley recordings," Jade demands. It's not a question.

"Oh yeah," Beck says, looking ever the more heartened. He pauses to lean against his desk at her for a moment. "We have to go into my dad's study. It's cool, he won't mind."

"Okay," Jade says, and Beck leads her off down the hallway. They end up listening to Alice in Chains' MTV Unplugged album. Beck's dad keeps popping in and hovering, asking Jade questions. She's wearing a Nirvana T-shirt, which he likes.

"Do you like Mudhoney?" he asks her. "How do you feel about The Melvins?"

"What's that?" Jade asks. Beck looks annoyed, because he's been trying to put the moves on her.

Mr. Oliver looks distressed. "Oh, honey," he says. "You gotta listen to the Melvins if you wanna be a disaffected youth."

Jade grins involuntarily. "Hey, I'm only fifteen," she says.

"I know," says Mr Oliver, and clutches his chest. "Which is why I won't tell you you're breaking my heart." Beck rolls his eyes hard, and Jade almost wants to, like, giggle at him or something.

Mr. Oliver shoves himself off the doorframe and moves past her and Beck into the room, heading towards a wall of CDs, which he starts picking through. "I'll start you off with something that's not too loud," he says to her without turning around.

"I like loud," Jade says, enthralled. He's seriously probably got like two thousand records in here. "I _love_ loud."

Beck looks upset. Later, when Dad drives over to pick her up, she's got five new CDs in her bookbag, and she lets Beck kiss her quickly on the porch. He tastes like pepperoni.

Dad doesn't look very impressed when she climbs into the front seat. "That boy needs a haircut," he says. Jade smiles.

* * *

So she guesses that she and Beck are sort of _dating_ now or whatever, which is all right, actually. Cat seems to like him, even though Beck is always kind of giving her weird looks when she interrupts him to ask strange questions about armpits or do you think crocodiles really cry?

If she's going to be with someone, it's cool that it's Beck. They're both attractive, after all. He's sweet to her, and she thinks she frightens him a little, so he usually lets her do what she wants.

Did she mention he's attractive?

He's also – despite the fact that when you really get to know him, as she slowly is, he's a gigantic dork – really personable. They've only been at Hollywood Arts for less than four months and Beck says hey to everyone in the halls, even seniors, and they say hey back.

"Oh," says Beck, looking surprised when she points this out the one day after classes (the knowing everyone thing, not the fact that he's actually a giant dork), "well, they're all working on the play and the showcase."

He leans in to kiss her then, and she lets herself fall against her locker. Beck is a good kisser, now that she's trained him not to try to suck her tongue down his throat every time she gives him access to her opened mouth. His hair, which falls down against her cheek when he moves in so close, is heavy and soft, and it smells good. She wonders what sort of shampoo he uses, but she doesn't think they're at that level yet to ask. She kisses him back, hard.

"_Ahem,_" says the fifty year old crotchety disfigured rabbi who's suddenly appeared beside them – oh wait no it's just Shapiro - "oh, you guys are still – ah – I'll just – be – over here – don't mind me, I'm – "

Jade pulls away from Beck momentarily to glare at him, even though he's already backing up. It's sort of weird to see him just holding his backpack and not his stupid puppet. "What do you want?" she asks.

Beck turns lazily, grinning. "Hey Robbie," he says, and Shapiro just continues to look purple and scandalized for some reason. God, it's not like they're naked or anything. Jade covertly glances down at herself in curiosity. Her bra straps aren't even showing!

"Uh – I was just – have you seen - " he pauses for a long and fearful moment for absolutely no reason at all - "Cat? Have you seen? Her?"

He's so weird.

"No," says Beck, frowning a little. "Sorry, man."

"She's probably across the street fingerpainting with the preschoolers," Jade says, not really meaning to help him, but it's just – well, where Cat would be. To make up for it, she demands: "Why? What do you want with Cat? What are you going to do to her?"

"I," says Shapiro, staring at her with his huge scared deer eyes, "she um. She has. My. History notes."

"Oh," says Jade. "Okay. Well, later, then. Shoo." She thinks, then adds, "Dork."

Shapiro just stares at her with his mouth open for a minute, probably unsure if he should actually say goodbye to her, then he turns and trots off all awkwardly like he's Napoleon Dynamite or some shit. Jade actually has to close her eyes with the pain of him.

"God," she mutters.

When she opens her eyes Beck is watching her with his eyes a mixture of amusement and concern. "You make him nervous," he says.

"Vomit," Jade says.

Beck brushes his hair out of his eyes in a smooth movement. "He's not like that when we're in History together. He can be sort of funny." He grins a little. "He's totally terrified of you."

"Good," says Jade. "He should be. Because I am terrifying." She glares out menacingly.

Beck tugs a little on a lock of her hair (purple). "No," he says.

Jade looks at him warily, not yet batting his hand away. "Excuse me?"

"You're cute," he says, grinning.

_Cute? Cute!_ Jade stares at him in moderate mortification. "I am _not_ cute," she grumbles, squaring her shoulders.

"Yeah you are," Beck grins, still twirling her long hair around his fingers. He leans lightly against his locker, looking at her with appraisal. "You're a little cutie, Jade."

Oh my god it's gone from cute to cutie and not only that but _little_. She doesn't even know how to respond to him – she'd kill him but god help her she really does sort of like him (and just that leaves her a mixture of shell-shocked, horrified, and actually a little tongue-tied, which has never happened). "You - " she says. "You – don't touch my _hair!_"

She stalks away from him to go wait for Dad to pick her up. Beck hums happily and follows after her.

* * *

About a week before Christmas, she and Beck and Cat are all at her house, trying to do homework. Beck's only been over once before, very quickly, to pick her up to go and see a movie, but Cat had been pouting about hanging out, and Jade hadn't really seen her all this week, so she acquiesced to a study session. Jefferson is skittering around annoyingly and Sophia is burning dinner because she's on the phone in the hallway, arguing loudly with one of her clients about wallpaper. Dad had took one look at her and Cat and the new addition of Beck and slithered upstairs quietly.

For the last twenty minutes, Jeff has been peering longingly into the den as Jade pointedly ignores him, and now he carts a bucket of legos out into the room, staring at them all hopefully. "Hey Jade," he says. "Want to help me build a replica of the Overlook?"

"No," says Jade, scribbling hard on her English assignment.

"What's that?" Beck asks, and Jeff looks distressed.

"Don't you watch any horror movies?" he demands.

Beck gives him a surprised look. "No, because they're scary," he says. "Do _you_ watch horror movies?"

Jeff gives Jade a mortified oh my god why are you dating this boy look. "Yes I do, because I am not a big baby," he says importantly.

Now Beck looks offended, as if anything her stupid baby brother says holds any merit. "Well, I don't get scared," he says, "so why should I bother watching them?"

"_Well,_" says Jeff, "Jade says - "

"What is the Overlook?" Beck asks again, and Jeff pouts hugely at being interrupted.

"It's a hotel from a scary movie Jade made us watch," Cat says, crunching on her lollipop. "It has Jack Nicholson in it. And … um, that guy. Morgan Freeman?"

"It's _not_ Morgan Freeman," Jade says, appalled.

Beck also looks appalled. "Do you mean The Shining?" he asks. "Jade, you let your brother watch that? That's rated R." He adds in horror, "There are boobs in it."

"So what?" says Jade. "He can take it."

"Yeah, I can take it!" Jeff hollers, shaking with indignation like a small ugly dog. Beck just looks at him oddly. Cat crunches her lollipop again and squeaks a little as she bites her tongue, then just looks awfully upset. She pulls the candy stick out of her mouth and starts squeezing at her tongue with her index finger and thumb, making little sad noises.

Jade wishes that everyone was just a little different.

She adds as an afterthought, "Also, shut up. If my stepmom finds out he watched that she'll ground me."

Cat giggles for some reason, and Jeff pauses to look at her lovingly. Jade feels – sort of embarrassed of them both, with Beck here, and that makes her feel shitty.

Beck frowns. He says to Jeff, "Shouldn't you be watching, like, Balto, or something?"

Jeff looks wildly offended. "Balto is for babies," he tells Beck. Beck frowns.

"I like Balto," Cat says dreamily.

"I like Balto too," says Beck. "Did you know that Phil Collins - "

"Bor-_ing_," Jefferson trills out, scurrying over closer to them and hovering around at the table. "Cat," he asks, "do you have any more candy?"

Cat giggles some more and starts riffling through her bookbag. Eventually she leaves the table to lay on the floor and start setting up the hotel foundations with Jeff. They're laughing together quietly and talking about – hell, Jade doesn't know. Something ridiculous, probably. Jeff whispers something covertly, and Cat trills out loud laughter, covering her face. Beck looks at them both in mild concern.

The fire alarm goes off, and Sophia starts shrieking. Cat and Jeff don't look up from their stupid hotel as Beck glances around, brows furrowing, at the small bit of smoke billowing out from the kitchen. Somewhere far upstairs, Jade can feel Dad being mildly upset at all the commotion.

"Uh," says Beck eventually, and Jade shoves her folders into her backpack in irritation.

"I'm so done with this place today," she announces. "Can we go to your house?"

"Sure," says Beck – rather quickly, which irritates her in some dim way that she pushes down. He casts another doubtful look down to the floor at Cat and Jeff.

"Cat," Jade commands, "go home."

Cat and Jeff look upset.

* * *

Andre Harris is a new transfer in after Christmas, and he's in Beck's English class and one of Shapiro's four hundred science classes and he starts sitting with them at lunch and Jade's sort of like, thank god, someone who is mostly normal. Harris plays guitar and has cool dreadlocks. Jade's not too sure about him for a while until she sees this exchange between him and Cat:

Cat is looking upset because she's forgotten to bring her math homework to class.

"I can't remember anything," she says, ranting in that sort of manic way that she adapts sometimes. "I'm so stupid! God! Why am I so stupid?"

Harris frowns a little. "Maybe you should start tying string around your fingers," he says. "That's what my grandmother does."

"How am I supposed to remember what the string is for?" Cat asks, still a bit wide-eyed.

Harris just smiles. He shrugs. "Well, you'll probably remember something, right?"

Cat looks suitably calmed. "I guess so," she says doubtfully.

Harris claps her on the back.

Jade thinks he's okay after that. Cat is pretty, and is sort of starting to get boobs, so no boys really tease her when she acts weird, but they don't go out of their way to comfort her, either, except Shapiro, who can't really do it right because he's dumb and awkward. Cat acquires Andre's phone number, and sometimes she and Jade and Beck and Andre will hang out together, which is nice because it means Jade gets to be with Cat and Beck at the same time and not feel guilty for ignoring either of them.

Shapiro is the only one of them without a cell phone and Beck's always looking sad and depressed when the kid doesn't answer his house line. He starts leaving long singing messages on Shapiro's answering machine, as Shapiro is more apt to quickly answer in horror if he's there and Beck's singing about strawberry lemonade (Beck is a weirdo).

Spring starts to slowly come upon them, and it's time for the school's underclassmen play, which is _Oliver!_ this year. Jade hasn't tried out for it because she hates _Oliver!_ And anyway, she's been busy with her singing solo (a lead, finally!) and trying to make Cat less of a dork and spending time at Beck's house discovering new cool music.

On opening night she sits in the audience with Harris and they share a box of Now and Later (only the best freaking candy, she knew Andre was cool!) and commiserate a little about not having parents who are normal and come to school plays. Shapiro has somehow been allowed to man the spotlight for the show and Andre laughs happily when he beams the light on Beck at the wrong time.

"I like Robbie," Andre says at one point. "He's a nice kid."

"He's also a geek," Jade says.

Andre thinks. "Yeah, he is," he says. "But I like 'im. He helped me rewrite my bio lab last week. He didn't even say anything about all my spelling mistakes."

Once Beck's run off to change, Jade goes out into the hallway and calls her dad. He doesn't answer at first, which means he's probably looking at stupid molecule maps, so she calls again.

"How was the play?" Dad asks when he finally answers this time on the fifth ring.

"Okay," she says, leaning against the wall. "We want to go out to eat. Cat's brother is going to take us."

There's a pause as Dad frowns at her from his phone. She can't see it, but it transmits heavily across the line anyway. "I don't know that I want you out with Michael this late," Dad eventually says, so quiet that she has to duck her head and press her ear hard against the phone.

Jade rolls her eyes hard and hopes that transmits too across Pear's satellites. "Yeah, he turns into a psychopath after eight PM. Usually he's locked up in the basement by now but they let him out because we need a ride."

Dad doesn't say anything for a long time.

"Oh my god!" Jade hollers. "Seriously? You never let me do anything. He's _fine_ now. You let me hang out at Cat's all the time!"

"I don't like to do that either," Dad says in his upset way.

Jade growls. "It's not like we'll be alone. Beck will be there."

There's an even more upset silence.

"And Harris and Shapiro will be there," she adds.

"That's a lot of boys," Dad says in distress.

"Oh my god!" Jade says again. "And, like, the whole restaurant staff. It's fine!" She thinks about it. "If anything, I think Mike will kill Shapiro first. Then Beck. Andre might be able to take him. By that time Cat and I will be hitching a ride home, okay?"

"That isn't funny, Jade," Dad mutters.

"I'm rolling my eyes at you."

"I know," says Dad, still sounding distressed.

"Seriously? Please? Oh my god, are you going to make me be that weird girl who can't go out with her friends? Seriously? Dad?"

There's some more silence as Dad is frowning and hemming and hawing and probably rubbing at his ever-growing bald spot and making her utterly want to die with mortification at him – and she can't even see him! "Fine," he says eventually. "You may go out to eat. Are you coming home tonight?"

Jade thinks guiltily of the ghost of Beck's hand across her shoulders, how he'd kissed her lingeringly after he'd come around from backstage. "I might sleep at Cat's house," she says.

"Hm," says Dad rather darkly, because he probably knows she's a liar.

"Hm," Jade snits back.

Dad sighs. "Fine," he says again. "Just call back and let me know."

"Are you even going to pick your phone up?" Jade demands. "You know, that's what they're for. Communication."

"I know what a phone is for," Dad says quietly, sounding upset and taking her question seriously like he's doubting his phone-answering capabilities. God, why can't he just be remotely normal ever?

"Okay," she says, sort of awkwardly, because really sometimes she can't talk to him at all. "So I can go?"

"You may go," Dad says, and then hangs up without even saying goodbye.

Jade glowers at her PearPhone before shoving it roughly back into the side of her messenger bag. Some phone skills! God, he irritates her. She's definitely sleeping over at Beck's tonight, if just to piss Dad off. She hopes he can sense that she won't be at Cat's.

Cat pops up beside her apropos of nothing, beaming and giggling. She's had a small part in the play. She was street urchin #3. "Did Alan say you could come?"

_Alan._ Jesus Christ!

"Yeah," she snaps shortly. Cat beams and bounces. "Stop being happy!" Jade commands, cuffing her, and then grabs her shoulder and they go off in search of Beck.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Sometimes, she really, really hates Tori. Did she mention that?

It's not like she's wasting all her time and energy actively hating Vega all the time, though, unlike what the people at school probably think. After the initial rush of Vega transferring in, kissing her boyfriend, and above all being disgustingly_ perfect_, things sort of settle down and Jade pretty much ignores her.

Usually it's pretty easy to function with Vega around. Jade allows herself to tally out a few snide comments per day, but she generally manages to coexist without throwing any (okay, _many_) punches. Cat likes Vega, which is maddening, and so does Andre, so after a few weeks, Jade has sort of resigned herself to Vega _always being around_.

Beck is always_ just so willing_ to help Tori out, and really, she does understand that it's not about making her jealous or anything, it's just because Beck is that much of a nice guy, which is honestly the most annoying part. Cat is always willing to help Tori out, too, and Andre, so they get sucked into stupid situations sometimes (no, she does not that to talk about that fucking hamburger costume, ever!).

It strikes her as a little odd that the only other member of their group who seems remotely resistant to letting Vega into the fold is Shapiro, who always looks a little put-off when Tori squishes herself down in between him and Andre or him and Cat. She's never wanted to be allied with Puppet Master of all people, but it's nice to know, in some small way, that she's not the only one who doesn't welcome change.

Vega isn't always around, though. One day she, Cat, Beck, and Robbie are all just in Beck's trailer, watching a crappy movie on the horror anthology she'd bought Shapiro for his birthday over the summer (Beck and Cat had made her_ feel bad_ okay? And Shapiro had really liked the Vincent Price movie she'd left over at Beck's, so there, at least someone appreciates classic cinema!), and it's nice, just the four of them, and she can pretend right now that Vega doesn't even exist and didn't totally snag the part she'd wanted in Sikowitz's new play.

A badly made-up decapitated mannequin head flies across the screen. Cat and Shapiro squeak. Jade steals the last of Beck's Poptart.

Shapiro and Cat are huddled together on Beck's bed, and Shapiro has Cat's Boogie Bear blanket half over his head to hide under. He looks like he's wearing the world's dorkiest headgear. Occasionally he pulls his gaze from the screen to give Cat brief looks of longing. Since the summer he's been rather tongue-tied around her (well, moreso than usual), and Jade – well, gets it, she guesses. Cat hasn't really changed much since Jade's known her, but August's push-up bra purchases have done wonders for her image at school.

It's gross, though, to think of Shapiro being affected by it. He isn't even a real boy, Cat had cried once when Jade teased her.

Sometimes Shapiro gets caught up and gives her these looks that – Jade has thought long and hard of how to describe them, as they crack her up and make Cat squeal and hit her – make it seem as though Cat breathes out rainbows and arrow hearts and other magical things. Currently he's giving her the sunshine and moonbeam gaze.

Cat shovels candy into her mouth, unaware. "I don't like this one, Jade," she says, unhappy. "Why do you guys always want to watch scary movies? Do you remember when we went to see the Hannah Montana movie? I think - "

Jade growls, because Cat's talking over the dialogue where Vincent Price reveals that he was the actually killer all along. "What happens to cats that talk too much?" she asks without taking her eyes from the screen.

Cat makes a tiny sad noise. "They get put in the washing machine," she replies.

Jade smiles. "That's right," she says sweetly.

Shapiro looks horrified. "Did she really put you in the washing machine?" he asks Cat.

"Just for a minute," says Cat.

Beck leans a little on her shoulder. "It's not nice to put friends in household appliances," he chides her gently. Jade just sniffs at him. It's not like she'd turned it _on_. And it had only been half-filled with water, anyway. Cat had gotten a big bruise on her leg, though, which had made Jade feel bad, and she'd spent an hour making Cat that stupid soup that she likes.

"I didn't mind," Cat says blithely, probably remembering the soup.

Eventually the movie ends, and Cat bounces up as she hears the honk of a horn outside – her brother in his van, picking her up to take her home to eat dinner. Then it's just Jade and Beck and Robbie, still wearing Cat's blanket on his head and looking rather unsure of himself now.

"Do you – um, should I go home too?" Shapiro asks, looking a bit fearful and like he knows what goes on in the RV when Jade and Beck are alone.

Battleship. Maybe 90s Trivial Pursuit. _Twister._

Beck sends her the Seductive Eyes look. He's been giving her that look a lot since they'd broken up for two days and then gotten back together. He's insatiable. "I dunno," he says. "I mean – maybe."

Jade rolls her eyes, because Jesus, is that all he thinks of? Anyway, she just started her period today, he should be able to freaking remember that, she doesn't want to – to – _canoodle_. So she says, "Nah, he can stay."

Shapiro looks happy. "Okay," he says. Beck frowns, which is also irritating! Every time Jade tries to be all up on his junk, it's "Jeez, babe, wait a while" or "Oh, but I was going to play Donkey Kong with Robbie tonight," like oh, of course you're going to play video games with your _boyfriend_ instead of sleeping with your freaking _girlfriend_, but God forbid she be on her period!

The next movie comes on, and they're quiet for a few minutes, watching. This one is actually sort of boring. Eventually Shapiro turns to them, that stupid blanket finally falling off his head.

"I've been reading that book you lent me," he says to her.

"Oh yeah?" Jade says. She'd given him Pet Sematary a few months back, and he hasn't mentioned it yet, so she'd sort of thought he'd forgotten about it. She hopes he's taking care of it, even though it's old and crumpled and already has the cover falling off. It's the oldest Stephen King book she has.

"Yeah," Shapiro says, and shudders. "Man, it's creepy."

Beck looks exaggeratedly bored, as he is wont to do whenever someone starts talking about books. "What part are you at?" Jade asks, ignoring him.

"Where she tells Louis about her sister that died," Robbie tells her, shuddering once more. "That's so sad! Did you know that meningitis is still a big problem, Jade?"

His eyes get big and sort of manic-looking. Jade and Beck exchange a knowing and resigned glance - oh God, here it comes.

Shapiro continues: "Did you know, I was reading this article – this lady got a tooth infection and it affected her _brain!_ She didn't know it got that bad! I mean, you don't think, right? By the time it was diagnosed, it was too late. She _died_!" He looks very pensive. "I think we should all get tested. You know, then I was reading statistics – do you use floss, Jade? Dental hygiene is very important! You know, actually, I think you should probably start taking calcium pills. Oh, I was reading this report - "

"Robbie," Beck interrupts in him a consoling tone, "we don't have meningitis. What about the book?"

"Oh," says Shapiro, calming. He blinks sort of owlishly. Beck catches her eye, and Jade has to fight to not smile. Shapiro's always not shutting the fuck up and going on about mental health and dental wellness and crazy stuff. "Sorry. Well, I really like it. Even though it's scary. I just can't imagine what else could happen!"

Jade smiles evilly.

* * *

But then of course spring is ending and Vega is all up in arms over the fact that Hollywood Arts doesn't have an annual school prom – they're freaking sophomores anyway, so who cares, isn't that shit usually for upperclassmen? She flashes her cheekbones around at the principal and manages to secure a date for a dance that she wants to put on.

It's on the night of Jade's movie showcase. It's not through the school, no, but it had started out as a script for her playwriting class, and she's already told everyone about it, and Cat's and her Creative Writing teacher is going to give anyone who shows up to it extra credit. Jade's had to tutor freshman all quarter in exchange to use the film department's equipment. Vega is fucking everything up.

"We're going to call it Prome," Vega says dreamily out in the hallway to a smiling Andre. Jade growls.

"Change the date!" she hollers.

Vega looks befuddled, doing that stupid thing where she bobs her head around and brushes her hair away from her face at the same time. "No way!" she cries. "It took me like an hour to convince the principal!"

Oh, for the love of Freddy Kruger! A whole_ hour!_ Jade hits the locker beside her, and Andre and Vega jump back slightly, exchanging scared glances. "It's the night of my short film," she grits out, "so you need to change it."

Vega looks upset and confused at the notion that the entire universe may not revolve around her perfect little head. "Well, I don't think that I can," she says, frowning.

Beck looks upset when Jade tells him about it later after class. "Did you tell her it was the night of your show?" he asks, frowning.

"_Yes!_" Jade cries, flailing a little, which probably looks moronic, but she's so _pissed_.

"She didn't care?"

Jade throws her hand out again, narrowly missing smacking him in the face. "Why would Vega care about me?" she hollers. "Fuck, she probably planned this!"

Beck frowns some more. "I wouldn't give her that much credit," he says, still looking upset. He chews his lip. "Maybe I can talk to her."

Jade fumes a bit more. "You know my dad is coming to this," she says. Dad has always been a little upset that she's loved Hollywood Arts so. He doesn't really think that acting and performing can lead anywhere, which is a shame, because it's all she wants to do. If he sees her film, though, with all the people that have come to see it, he might change his mind.

"I know," Beck says, looking even more stressed. "Don't worry, okay? We'll talk to Tori."

* * *

Vega doesn't change her mind. "The courtyard is booked every other night," she tells Jade, looking apologetic. "Our class really wants a dance – all the people in my History class already know about it. This is the only night they're going to give me." Jade looks murderous, so Vega quickly continues, "I'm sorry! I didn't know you were going to show a movie! Can't you switch the night?"

Jade waves her fist, and Beck has to pull her back a few inches. "First off, it's not a movie. It's a _film._ That I _made._ And no, I can't fucking change it! I booked a god damn theatre in Hollywood! I can't tell them, whoops, I changed my mind!"

"It was really expensive," Beck adds helpfully. "Cat made posters."

"I helped," pipes up Shapiro, who's lingering awkwardly, and then he uses his inhaler, because confrontations upset him.

"Robbie helped," Beck says, still helpful.

"He got a paper cut, Vega," Jade adds darkly (Shapiro looks distraught, remembering). "You want his injuries to be in vain?"

Vega looks conflicted. "Well, I'm sorry," she says again. "I really want to throw this dance. It's the first thing I've really done for Hollywood Arts! I'm sure people will still go to your – um, film. Probably. Right?"

Jade stalks away. Beck follows her. Shapiro runs off to use the restroom.

* * *

Jade steals the keys to the courtyard so Vega can't get in after school and decorate. She sneaks into the auditorium and pours black paint onto all the origami flowers Vega's made for decorations. She switches out the music playlist with African tribal meditative music from Dad's office. She calls the hair salon and cancels Vega's hair appointment for the next week.

Beck looks upset throughout all of this. He hasn't helped her pour any paint, either, or to switch the mix tapes (he doesn't know about her stealing keys from the school). "I don't condone any of this," he says as she's hanging up her phone.

"Yeah, I bet you don't," Jade snits.

"Maybe if you asked her again," Beck suggests. "You know, like, nicely. Without the screaming. And waving the scissors. People don't like it when you take out the scissors, babe."

Jade snarls.

From where she's sitting on the floor in Jade's room, Cat looks upset. "We're still going to go to your movie, Jade," she says. Since it's Cat, Jade doesn't bother to correct her that it's a film and not a movie. "Right, Beck?"

"Of course, babe," Beck says to Jade, trying to rub her arm soothingly, but Jade just tears away to viciously grab her scissors and start cutting up her curtains. Sophia had made them, and they're ugly anyway. Cat and Beck watch her warily. "So babe," Beck says slowly, "I mean … so I'm guessing, uh, you don't want to go to the dance with me, right?"

Jade throws her scissors. Beck ducks.

* * *

The next week, after class lets out, Cat is looking depressed as she turns down another junior who's asked her to Prome. She trails alongside Jade, clutching her books, as they're leaving the school. She's being rather shockingly and disturbingly quiet.

Jade stops suddenly to turn and glare at her. "You!" she cries. "I can't believe you!" Cat looks at her with wide and fearful eyes. "You want to go to Vega's prom!"

"Prome," Cat corrects her softly, then squeaks in terror when Jade moves forward menacingly. "And no, I don't!" She shakes, and Jade can hear all her stupid wrist bangles jingling together. "I mean, I mean … okay, maybe I do, but I'm, I'm not!"

Jade growls.

Cat continues, "Of course I'm going to your movie! So are some girls in my writing class! So is Robbie! Do you know, he already asked me to Prome like eight times?"

"_Oh did he_," Jade growls. Traitorous puppet weasel! She wonders what sort of substance she can fill his locker with that won't kill him.

"But I said no!" Cat squeals in terror. "So he's going to your movie too! I just, you know, I just have never been asked to a dance before, Jade!" Her eyes start getting bigger and bigger. "Who knows if I will again!"

"I don't even care if you go to the stupid dance!" Jade hollers. "I don't care! It's not like you owe me anything, since you love Vega so much! Go to your stupid Prome with her and don't talk to me!" She punches a locker for good measure and starts to stalk off again.

"Jade!" squeals Cat, running after her. "I don't want to go to Prome with Tori! I want to be with you!"

Sikowitz, passing by, looks very confused.

Jade knocks his coconut milk out of his hands as she flies past him. Teach him to give Tori the lead!

* * *

The week ends and it's time for the night of her film showing. Beck warily drives her (he's only had his license for a month) to the theater. He uses the child lock on his doors so Jade can't open them up when he's stopped at lights and take off running.

"I don't want to go," Jade crabs. "I don't want to do it anymore. What's the point? No one's coming." She wonders if she can break through his windows. His car is sort of old.

"_I'm_ coming," Beck reminds her. "I'm sure Cat will be here too. And your parents and br - " at Jade's hard glare, he quickly amends, " - uh, your dad and stepmother and brother, are coming."

"Not enough," Jade says.

Beck frowns, and then checks the locks once more for good measure. Behind them, someone honks – the light's turned green – and Beck makes a rather unappealing squeaking noise and steps on the gas pedal too hard. Once he's calmed down, he says, "Hey – why do the numbers matter so much to you?" He attempts a smile at her. "In ten years, when you're famous, people will be crying over it."

Jade scowls.

Beck continues: "Who cares how many people see it or not tonight? I mean, babe, you still made a freaking _movie_. That's a huge deal!"

"It would be a huger deal to my dad," Jade says, "if he could see people actually coming to it and caring about some shit I did."

Beck frowns, because he doesn't get it, because his dad basically has Jade's dream job and gets to be creative all day and talk to musicians and work with art. Jade's dad is a _scientist_ (with a law degree. And he used to sell stocks) and is the most unimaginative person alive. He doesn't say it, but he thinks filmmaking is child's play.

Beck looks sad and tired and depressed - she guesses that's just what a day spent with her does to a person. God, it's not like_ he's_ been working on this thing for months! She hollers at him when he bumps into some stuff up in the projector room and knocks over a film reel.

"I just don't know what you want me to do to help you," he says, holding up his hands in a little surrender after he gives her back the film.

"Don't help me," she spits out. "I don't want help."

Beck just frowns and looks at her for a long moment, watching her start to load up the projector, but she doesn't say anything else to him, hoping he'll go away. There is practically no one downstairs and, God, it's embarrassing.

Eventually Beck mutters, "All right, I guess I'll just go downstairs and find Cat."

"Cat's not coming," Jade snaps.

Beck looks upset. "Of course she is!" he says.

"_No,_" Jade grits out. "She's at the dance. She bought a new dress. She isn't coming. I told her not to."

"Jade," says Beck in incredulity, "Why … ?"

Jade just keeps resolutely not looking at him, and he doesn't finish his question. "Well, do you want," he starts, "I mean … All right. I'll just, I'll go downstairs."

"Fine," says Jade.

Beck hovers for a few more seconds, looking like he wants a kiss, but she has no time to indulge him, as she's already practically an hour behind schedule waiting for more people to show up and her two viewers are probably going to leave soon anyway. Beck sighs and slinks out of the projector booth.

When her film comes to a close she abruptly cuts the reel and immediately packs her things up. She doesn't look for Beck. She goes downstairs into the main hall. The first person she sees is Sophia, who smiles sadly at her.

"I really liked it, Jade," she says.

Jade says, "I want to go home."

Dad and Jeff are out in the parking lot already, because Jeff had ate too much candy and had to go throw up in the bushes.

"I held it in until it was over," Jeff tells her. Jade doesn't say anything. She climbs into the backseat. Dad, getting into the front, gives her a sad look. Jade doesn't say anything.

"Jade," says Dad.

"Don't," she says. "I'm stupid. No one came. I'm sorry I wasted your money."

Dad looks upset. He says, "It doesn't matter - "

"I want to go home."

Dad and Sophia exchange a quick glance, because it's Friday night.

"Where's Beck?" Sophia asks. "Does Cat need a ride?"

Jade just puts her head in her hands. Dad starts the car.

Jeff leans on her sadly, and she lets him, even though he isn't wearing his seat belt properly.

"Thanks for putting in the dinosaur," is the only thing he says.

"Yeah," says Jade. She puts her headphones on.

* * *

Jade turns her phone off when she gets home, because she doesn't want to talk to anyone - Beck will probably yell at her for ditching him, and ew, why did Shapiro call her? but Cat comes over the next morning regardless. She's pouting everywhere.

"Why didn't you come and say hi to us after your show!" she cries, squeezing one of Jeff's stuffed animals that's been lying on the floor. "We could have got food! Beck likes it when we get food!"

Jade says, "Oh," because she really thought Cat hadn't been coming once she'd told her not to.

Cat glowers at her – well, whatever it is that's close to glowering, which is the best Cat can do, maybe squinting, as she doesn't have a mean bone in her body. "You really thought I wouldn't go and see your movie!" she squeals.

"Film," says Jade.

Cat waves the ugly bunny around. "I told you I would!" she said. "I told you I could do both! We left Prome early! Oh, Jade, the music was _so weird._"

Jade tries not to smile, because she's still sulking. "Okay," she says. "Well, it was a bust, I don't want to talk about it."

Cat pouts. "Well, me and Beck and - "

"Yeah, so, how mad is he, exactly?"

"Who?" Cat looks confused. "Oh, Beck?"

"Who else?"

"Oh." Cat sits abruptly on the bed. "I guess not too mad. Just worried about where you were. We didn't get burgers without you."

"Uh, that's nice, I guess." The image of Cat and Beck alone in a diner together is a weird one, she has to admit.

"I liked your movie," Cat continues. "Sophia says - "

"Cat," Jade interrupts. "I'm burying it. We will never speak of it again, okay?"

Cat looks depressed. "But it was good!" she cries.

"Huh? What was good?"

Cat shakes. "Jade!"

"Do you want to get waffles?" Jade demands.

Cat brightens. "Yeah I do!" she cries.

* * *

Vega stops her one day the next week at lunch when she's gotten up to throw her trash out.

"Jade," says Vega, hovering a few steps away and looking like the world's most apologetic bird. "I'm really -"

"Don't talk to me," Jade says shortly, making sure to put her soda can in the recycling in case Beck is watching.

"I - " says Vega.

"I said don't talk to me. I don't have anything to say to you, seriously."

Vega takes another step forward, looking scared and determined, which is so stupid – they're at school, so it's not like Jade could actually murder her, or even cause her bodily harm. She doesn't want to get expelled. "Jade," she says again, and Jade briefly wonders why the whole world feels the need to use her name every two seconds for emphasis. "I'm really sorry. Cat and Robbie were talking to me yesterday. I didn't know – I mean, I didn't know how important the movie was to you -"

Jade bites her lip so hard she actually draws blood, and Vega looks more scared. Jade rolls her eyes heavenward, counts to five. "All right," she says to the sky. Then she moves forward very quickly so that she's standing right in front of Vega's stupid scared face. "Listen," she says.

Vega stares in terror.

"You're sorry? That's real nice," Jade sneers. "You're always crying about wanting to be my friend, but when I tell you to do one thing – one _fucking_ thing! - you can't do it."

"I," says Vega, but Jade cuts her off.

"My dad," she says, "my dad, my stepmom, they really don't like me being at Hollywood Arts. My father doesn't think – he doesn't think I can make a _viable career _come from this. Do you – do you know anything about tax brackets?" she demands menacingly and a little inanely.

Vega looks scared. "No-ooo," she says slowly.

"Well," Jade says, "I'm sure your parents get a nice little hefty tax cut to help pay for your tuition. My dad doesn't, because he is a genius and not a fucking state cop. That's actually not very lucrative. I had to beg and plead to come here. I really – I really wanted him to see that I could do something good, something that people could care about. Do you know how expensive it is to rent out a film hall in Hollywood for one night?"

"No," squeaks Vega. "I – I don't."

"I convinced my dad to help me pay for it. I told him it would be worth it. I told him I wanted him to come and see my movie and see my friends. Him renting out this theatre? Was my Christmas present and my birthday present. Until I turn, like, twenty-five. It was really, really, fucking expensive."

Vega bites her lip.

"All I wanted," Jade tells her, "was one night. And you took that away from me. Every single person that told me they were coming was at your fucking dance instead. You took Cat from me! You made Sikowitz chaperone! So if it was your goal to show my father what a fucking failure I am, congratulations, you succeeded."

"Jade, I didn't know!" cries Vega. "How was I supposed to know that? And I didn't - "

"Just stop," says Jade, suddenly overwhelmingly tired and defeated. "I don't want to – look, we're done, okay? Just … don't. Don't talk to me anymore. I don't care."

"I - " says Vega again, but Jade just turns away from her. Across the courtyard, she can feel eyes on her - Beck and Cat, Shapiro and Harris, but she doesn't go back and sit with them.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

It's only the second week of classes and junior year is so stupid and she's sure Sikowitz is going to give Tori the lead in his new stupid fucking play – she hates Tori so much! She takes everything from her! Her stomach and back have been hurting, like, all day, the fuck's her deal? and the icing on the cake is that Beck wants to go to stupid Tori's after school that night, like, of course he does, and they get into a huge fight, and he dumps her!

HE DUMPS HER!

Well, maybe it's sort of mutual. She doesn't have to give him ultimatums all the time. She doesn't have to try and make him leave Tori's. She really didn't need to stand outside and count to ten and tell him if he wasn't by her side at the end of the count that it was over. But he just makes her so mad sometimes. A lot of the time. All the time, lately.

He didn't come outside for her. She'd even waited an extra ten seconds. Ten minutes.

She could have gone back in to Vega's, she thinks. Told him he was stupid, told him she was stupid, told him she was joking, maybe even apologized. But Beck isn't stupid, and neither is she, and she wasn't joking, and she always tries her hardest to never apologize ever to anyone.

So then she's just left standing on Vega's doorstep – on the outside as usual, and this time she can't even look in, and Beck is inside, with everyone else, and BeckandJade become Beck and Jade, separately, for the last time.

So she leaves. What else can she do?

She goes home.

At her house, locked safely in her bathroom, she sinks on the edge of the bathtub and regards her underwear sadly. She's got her period – how fucking stupid is she? she knows what cramps feel like! - and she doesn't really bleed bad like Cat does (God help you if you ever get Cat and Jade on the subject of their periods), but she's got spots of blood all over her underwear. The blood is so dark it's almost black this time. Jade isn't squeamish, especially about her own body and blood, but she hates the way it looks now, since it's on her underwear. Her new underwear! They're white and have tiny penguins on them. Fuck everything. Of course she would wear white on the day she's getting her period.

She looks sadly at the penguins; she lets herself cry a little bit. But just because she's ruined her new underwear, you see, and not because Beck broke up with her. And now he won't even get to see the penguins. But that's his loss, anyway.

Downstairs Jefferson is making himself a peanut butter sandwich as a late-night snack and he follows her around the kitchen, pestering her about something stupid. She isn't listening. Sophia is looking at carpet swatches at the kitchen table, the glasses she wears liberally perched low on her nose.

"Out of my way," Jade says, checking her brother with her hip as she opens the fridge. "I'm bleeding."

Jefferson looks wildly interested. "Where?" he shouts. "Are you _dying_?"

"Only one day at a time," she tells him drolly, "and a little more each time you open your fat mouth and speak to me." At least there's pineapple soda in the fridge.

"Don't scare him, Jade," Sophia warns from the table, not looking up from her swatches.

Jade growls, closing the fridge.

"Why aren't you out with_ Beckly_?" Jeff asks, making a face. He doesn't not like Beck, exactly, but Jade thinks he's weirdly jealous of him. Since she's been dating Beck, she's hardly been home, really. She can do her homework in Beck's RV. Jeff doesn't like that, misses her, and it makes her feel bad sometimes, but not bad enough to stay at home and be bothered by her stepmother. "Don't you have your stupid dates on Friday nights? Hey, Jade! Jaaaade?"

"_Beckly_ broke up with me," she informs her brother, popping the tab on her soda and taking a long swig.

"_Really_?" says Jeff, taking pause. Then: "YES!" He throws his fists in the air and jumps, then does a little dance. Jade kicks at his feet, trying to knock him over.

Sophia is looking up from her carpet samples now, frowning and looking all concerned and pseudo-motherly – Jade fucking hates it when she looks like that. Like she can help Jade with _anything_. Like she has the right to! "Did he really, Jade?"

"It's whatever," Jade snaps, and she feels a sudden wave of sadness hit her all suddenly, like Sonny Bono had hit that tree that killed him. God, that was a shitty metaphor. Maybe she is more upset than she thought. At least she can partly blame Dad, who had been watching VH1 Behind the Music last night.

"Are you all right? What happened?"

"We had a stupid fight," is all she says. Then she looks up. "There's blood in my underwear. How do I get it out?"

Sophia looks surprised at the change of topic and Jeff shrieks. "Ew! Are you having a baby?" he hollers.

Jade rolls her eyes. "Go away," she says to him.

"Jeff, go eat your sandwich somewhere else, sweetie," Sophia says. "Go find Dad."

"Dad says if I get crumbs on his paperwork again he's going to melt all my GI Joes in the microwave. Can he do that, Jade?"

"I can do that _right now,_" Jade warns darkly.

Jeff squeaks a little, then he takes his sandwich and leaves the room.

Sophia gives Jade that awful _I'm concerned and worried because I'm pretending to be your mother now!_ face.

"Are you okay?" she asks. Since it's Sophia, her stupid accent turns it into two words – _oh kay_?

"My uterus hurts," Jade snaps, and she hates that she can hear the whine in her voice. "Sophia, I just got these underwear at Build-A-Bra. They were _eight dollars_."

Sophia makes a befuddled face. "Go and get them," she says. "Run them in cold water. Then we can put them in the washer."

So Jade does. She squishes herself into their tiny laundry room that's off the back of the kitchen and she and her stepmother soak her underpants in Shout. She kind of feels like crying again, and she wishes Sophia would leave her alone.

"Do you want some cocoa?" Sophia asks.

"No!" Jade shouts. "I'm not Tori and Andre! Jesus!"

Sophia looks confused and distressed. She never knows what Jade is going on about.

"Please go away," Jade grits out. Miraculously, she does.

Jade lays up in her room, on her unmade bed, and listens to Katatonia, which is the band that Beck hates the most. He tells Jade that whenever she listens to them, it makes him want to kill himself. Good, she thinks, turning it up. This is the soundtrack to her life. She's the ghost of the sun.

But listening to Katatonia doesn't make her feel any better this time. All the songs remind her of Beck. For a while, every song about anything ever had been about Beck, but now, given their current situation, it just sort of makes her feel horrible instead of light, and makes her want to slit her wrists, or maybe break something. Preferably his face.

It's a little past eleven when there's a brisk knock on the door – Jade knows it's Cat, because she always rapidly taps four times on the doorframe – and then the girl is slipping into her room in a whirl of red hair.

Cat inspects Jade sadly. "Hi," she says quietly.

"Hey," Jade says, not making a move to look up or turn down her music.

Cat wrinkles her nose. She doesn't like metal music. Cat would probably be listening to the theme from Treasure Planet if she got dumped. She has done so, actually, after Tori had poured hot cheese all over her and kissed her boyfriend. Jade had had to sit in Cat's pink pink bedroom all night and watch three Disney movies with her as consolation – 101 Dalmations, Peter Pan, and Bambi. It had pained her excessively, mostly because they're all based on children's book that were actually pretty awesome. Maybe Jade should put on the Goo Goo Dolls. They're one of the few bands that both she and Cat like.

Cat sits precariously on the edge of Jade's bed. "Are you okay?" she asks, still sounding sad.

"I bled all over my new underwear," Jade tells her.

Making a sympathetic face, Cat wriggles on the bed until she's sitting next to Jade. "I got my period today too," she says.

Stupid! She and Cat have gotten their periods at the same time since, like, the middle of eighth grade. Maybe if she hadn't been so busy arguing with Beck the whole day and had taken the time to actually talk to Cat for two seconds, she would have been reminded of her period and could have averted this whole disaster.

"It sucks," Jade says.

Cat makes a small sound of agreement, then looks nervous some more. "I wanted to come and see how you were doing," she says to Jade. "Everyone was sort of upset after you left. Robbie cried again. But only a little bit – I think he's getting better!"

Jade rolls her eyes. She doesn't say anything.

"Your brother is downstairs microwaving one of his army dolls," Cat tells her. "The kitchen smells horrible."

Jade smiles.

"Are you going to call Beck?" Cat presses.

"Why?" Jade asks, immobile. "So we can fight some more?"

Cat frowns all over the place. "No-ooo," she says slowly. "Are you guys really breaking up? I hope not. Do you - "

"Cat, he _left me there,_" Jade interrupts.

Cat offers her a small half-smile. "Technically, you left him there," she says. "I had to give him a ride home. I ran over three curbs! I think he almost threw up."

"Good," says Jade.

"Do you want me to stay with you?" Cat asks. "I can sleep over. We haven't had a sleep over in like, almost a year!"

Jade doesn't answer for a long time. She listens to Katatonia. Finally, "Fine," she says in a small voice.

Cat beams at her, then remembers that they're being sad, and swallows it down. "Can I change this music, though?" she asks.

"Whatever."

Cat slides to the floor and crawls to Jade's stereo, where she opens up Jade's huge case of CDs that's heaped beside it and muddles through them for a few minutes. Like Jade knew she would, Cat puts the Goo Goo Dolls into the stereo. Then she crawls back across the room and wriggles back up onto the bed. She's sort of like a – loyal dog. Or, well, a loyal cat, Jade supposes. Cat lays her head down on Jade's shoulder and sort of burrows into her neck. She squeezes Jade into a hug.

Jade normally wouldn't allow this, but Cat did leave Tori's early to check on her, and she sort of feels like she's going to cry again if she moves too much, so she just lays still and lets Cat hug her. When she isn't going crazy – shit, even when she is – Cat's a good friend. Cat is, she is reminded, her only friend.

They lay in Jade's room. Eventually, they sit up, and Cat helps Jade take down the posters and pictures on her wall that remind her of Beck – practically everything. Later, she promises, they'll go through them, and decide which to burn, and which Jade can hide under her bed and take out sometimes, to look at, and to remember. The music plays. Eventually, when Jade's walls are nearly bare, the girls lay down again. Cat stands on the bed to turn the light on the ceiling fan off, and then she snuggles down under Jade's comforter, still fully dressed. She doesn't squawk about needing to go home and change or ask Jade how she is. She just uses the remote to turn up the music, since it's playing Jade's favorite song.

_I hung your picture on the wall  
But that's all it is  
I break my fingers to make a call_  
_But that's all it is_  
_I know you're living way out west_  
_But I don't think that I confessed_  
_Everything I feel_

_You say you got no faith in things that you can't see_  
_Well, I'm sorry I ain't there with you_

_but you ain't here with me_  
_And I'm down in all my fears_  
_but I ain't crying no tears over you_

_'Cause everything's wrong_  
_But it's alright_  
_Everything's wrong_  
_Well, it's alright_

**AN: I feel like this is a bit disjointed - do I need a summer chapter in between? But I am hurrying it along, because I want to write Rade.  
**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

It's hard without Beck around. She really thinks she would have gone insane that first weekend if not for Cat, and – _insane if not for __Cat__,_ what kind of sentence is that, really?

When Jade wakes up on that first morning, she's alone. She lays there for a few moments, letting her eyes adjust to the light, and slowly but surely she can hear the rising and falling sounds of Cat belting out Broadway tunes drifting up at her from downstairs.

It's very strange to be at her house on a Saturday morning, she thinks as she drags herself up out of bed and skulks down the hallway and into the bathroom to shower.

She hadn't slept over at Beck's _every_ weekend, had she? All right, maybe she had, for the past few months, anyway. Since the summer. One night just before school had let out and she'd still been sad about her film Beck had bought her a bunch of black out lights and they'd hung them up in the RV and drawn on one wall with those special markers. Beck wrote their initials in a heart and also a panda because he likes those. Jade had drawn a school of fish because she still felt bad for killing his all those months ago near Christmas time. He'd -

Oh, but she's not supposed to be thinking of him, no.

When she slumps downstairs Cat is making waffles and there's batter and sprinkles all over the counter and stove (since eighth grade, what they call the Battered Barbie Doll Birthday Cake Incident, neither Cat nor Jade have been allowed to use the stove when Cat is over and Sophia's lurking, but Cat has the waffle maker out, and anyway, stepmonster is probably still asleep anyway). Jeff is sitting at one of the counter stools watching her with his head in his hands and sprinkles in his hair.

Cat is singing songs from The Lion King - she finds The Lion King to be very deep and meaningful. Last spring, her brother had taken her to see the musical for an early birthday present. Jade had had a concert she'd taken Beck to (someone had elbowed her in the face during the opening act), so she hadn't gone. Cat had invited Andre and Shapiro. She doesn't remember if either of the boys had gone, but Andre has a little stuffed Pumba in his locker, so maybe they had.

Cat sets a plate of Hello Kity-shaped waffles down in front of Jade. Jeff tries to drink his juice and simultaneously look dreamy at Cat and ends up spilling all over his shirt. He beams anyway.

"I like you being broken up with Beck," he tells Jade. She takes a seat beside him and glowers. "Does this mean Cat will be over all the time again? I like girls."

"Me too! Boys are stupid," Cat says happily, pouring some marshmallows on Jade's waffles. Good lord. She throws her head back and adds: "_TIL WE FIND OUR PLACE ON THIS PATH UNWI-INDING._"

Jade grunts. She eats her waffles.

Cat hangs out for most of the day. Jade's dad takes them out for a late lunch (he doesn't say anything to her about Beck, but he wouldn't, ugh). They eat at Pizza Express, and it's so dumb, because she can drive and Cat can drive now, it's not necessary, but it's nice to be out with Dad anyway. He even pays for the pizza (Cat drinks four sodas).

"Are you going to be okay?" Cat asks, hesitating, when she's getting ready to go home late that night.

"I'm fine," says Jade, disheartened, because neither of them have mentioned Beck all day and has Cat just been with her this whole time out of pity?

Cat does that thing where she trembles with energy. "Did _he_ call you?" she asks.

"_Twice,_" says Jade. She hadn't pick up. She doesn't want to hear what Beck has to say. Probably more things about how mean and horrible she is. She wasn't so horrible when she picked pepperoni out of Cat's hair earlier, now was she? Beck was always telling her to be nicer to Cat, and she'd just stare at him, because doesn't he _know_? Cat is the only person she's nice to, ever, aside from him.

And since he's dumped her, Jade decides this is a smart thing.

Cat trembles some more. She says, "I don't want you to be sad, Jade."

Jade grunts.

Cat says, "But I _am_ glad that we got to hang out today. I guess that makes me a bad person."

"What?" Jade says. Cat is so fucking weird.

Cat gives a big pout. "Jade, you know I love Beck."

"Goody for you."

Cat ignores this. "But!" she says. "You were always hanging out with him. I mean, I mean, I was happy for you!" She shakes some more. She twirls her hair. She bursts out, "But I missed you!"

"Oh," says Jade, the most horrible friend in the world, the most typical girl who gets a boyfriend and then ignores her best friend. "Well, I'm sorry."

Cat beams beatifically, because Jade has said sorry six times in her whole life. "That's okay!" she says. "I understand!"

Jade feels small and guilty. She thinks of Cat's weirdness – her bubble-gum wrapper shrine to Drake and Josh in her bedroom and how little toys from cereal boxes are always falling out of her binders. How she's forever talking about her brother and will just ask at lunch if sweat and pee are cousins. The faces everyone else makes and how sometimes Jade just wants to be _away,_ and all she really wanted was to make sure that Cat was cool now and then she ended up with a boyfriend and leaving her anyway.

Cat continues on blithely, already on to a completely different subject. "My brother got me this new hair thing last week," she says happily. "Want to come over tomorrow and put jewels in my hair?"

"Um," says Jade, and actually she really does, "yeah, sure."

* * *

Jade manages to avoid Beck until sixth period on Monday, when he corners her outside of the library, looking all distressed and mournful like he hadn't just sat in Vega's house all night and played cards and dumped her and had a jolly good time.

"Jade," he says, not even leaning, "are you really going to not talk to me?"

Jade looks at the expanse of the hallway behind him and the angle at which he's standing, wondering if she can build up enough momentum to just knock him out of the way and run home, or at least across the street and hide in the preschool's bathroom until Cat's done (Cat does an extra-credit program there every Monday and Wednesday, Time with Tots. They'd banned Jade from the program after three weeks). "What's to talk about?" she asks a locker.

Beck makes a sad noise. "Yeah," he says, "right."

Jade scowls, crossing her arms without meaning to, leans her hip against the doorframe of the classroom across from the library. "Isn't this what you wanted?" she snaps. "We broke up. We're done. Over. Now you can go out with Tori."

"You know I don't want to go out with Tori!" Beck snaps back. "You really think this is about Tori?"

Jade doesn't say anything.

"Do you - " Beck starts, then falters, frowning at her. He runs his hands through his hair. She notes that he's gotten it cut over the weekend, and it's too short and kind of stupid-looking, which makes her a tiny bit happy, but that's quickly quashed by the thought that Beck was just feeling so great this weekend that he went out and got a haircut. "You don't – you don't want to talk about us?"

She says again, "What's to talk about?"

Beck looks frustrated. "Don't you even care?" he demands.

"Do I care that you wasted a year and a half of my life?" Jade asks. "Nope."

Beck gives out a frustrated growl. "Right," he says. "Of course."

She sort of wants to cry. She wants to sit down on the floor and cry and maybe e'll feel bad and take her back or say he didn't mean it. She doesn't know why she can't actually cry or be a normal girl and just has to be nasty. "So is there something you want?" She makes her voice sound very loud and bored. "Because I actually have some things to do."

Beck stares at her, still looking sad. "Well, I guess not," he says. "I have – Jade, there's so much of your stuff at my house. Do you – like, do you want to come over? We can go through it."

"No."

"Well, what about your books? What about your DVDs? Do you – like – should I bring them to you?"

Stupid Beck. It was his idea to start a DVD collection anyway! She knew everything would just get fucked, and - oh my God, he's going to keep her Friends DVDs!

"I don't care," she says. "Burn them. Break them." Then she adds, "But not my books."

Beck makes another upset noise. "You don't actually have to act like this," he says. "I still want to be your fr-"

"I'm not _acting_ like anything!" Jade yells at him.

"Yes you are!" Beck yells back, all frazzled. "You're acting like you don't care!"

"I _don't _care," she says. She tries to push past him, but he jumps to the side, blocking her.

"Can you just talk to me?"

"Nothing to talk about."

"Jade," Beck says in the tones of one who is eternally frustrated and may actually be going insane with it, "that's not true. You know I love y-"

"Oh yeah," Jade sneers. "You love me so much you ditched me in front of all of our friends."

"_You_ put yourself in that position," Beck tells her, and she hates him so much because she knows he's sort of right. "And that's not even – Jade! I just wish you'd talk to me more. I don't even know what's going on."

Jade stares at him in disbelief. "I talk to you all the time!"

"Not about anything _important,_" Beck says mournfully. "And you just – snapped at me about _Tori,_ what's that about?"

"No_thing._"

"Yeah," says Beck sadly. "Nothing."

"God!" yells Jade. God, Buddha, Siddhartha, whoever, help her. What the hell does he _want?_ "What the hell do you want?"

"Nothing," Beck repeats.

"Whatever," Jade snaps. "Are we done here? I have to go update my SplashFace to single."

Beck looks highly upset. "Yeah," he says. "I guess we're done."

"Great," Jade snaps, shoving into him too roughly to get by, "awesome." She starts to stomp down the hall. Beck cries out after her, "What do you want me to do with your stuff?"

"I don't care!" Jade roars, and slams her way out of the school.

* * *

Lunch is difficult.

She can sort of sense their group dividing – she situates herself stiffly on the end of the table, glowering at everything, Cat sitting beside her on one side and Vega hovering frizzily on the other side (for the love of Vincent Price, can't the girl invest in a ponytail for one godforsaken day?!), sticking with her out of some gross sense of girl-solidarity. Shapiro and Harris sit opposite them, casting nervous glances at her and Beck.

"Are we going to Karaoke Dokie tonight?" Beck demands of Shapiro with far too much force. He takes the time to glower at Jade, who nastily updates her PearPhone: _surrounded by losers and cats_.

"Um," says Shapiro in great fear.

"Robbie is already going with us," Tori tells Beck importantly, crossing her arms. "Right, Robbie?"

Beck looks highly affronted.

"Um," says Shapiro in great fear.

"Robbie and Rex are going to sing a duet!" Cat says happily, unaware of the war that's going on. "Right Robbie?" She leans across the table to poke him, and he sends her a brief moonbeams and sunshine hearts gaze before commencing to look scared.

"How are you getting there?" Beck demands. He glowers at Jade some more. "Are you picking him up?"

"So what if I am," Jade sneers, who was unaware that Shapiro was even coming to karaoke night. "You don't even like karaoke, Beckett."

"I do so!" snaps Beck. "Maybe I want to sing a song. Right, Robbie?"

"Um," says Shapiro in great fear.

Andre pours some ketchup on his plate. "I'd like a ride to karaoke," he says conversationally.

"You would _never_ sing a song," Jade snits. "You can't even sing. You can't do anything!"

"I can so!" cries Beck. "Anyway, I have a date!"

"Well I have a date too!" roars Jade.

Beck shakes with rage. Shapiro spills his iced tea on Andre in great fear.

"You guys are upsetting Robbie's colon," Cat tells them.

"My colon is fine!" squeals Shapiro.

"Who do you have a date with?" Beck demands.

"Andre, Jade and I can pick you up too," Cat tells Andre, who's mopping his sleeve.

"Don't worry about who my date is!" Jade yells. "I don't care about _your _date!"

"I don't care about your date either!" Beck yells, interrupting Andre, who just closes his mouth. "You know what, I have to study." He slams his binder shut. "Come on, Robbie."

Robbie looks around in great fear. "I have to go to the bathroom," he says.

* * *

It's only Thursday, so when she, Cat, Andre, and Robbie get to Karaoke Dokie, it's not too crowded. The Sisters Vega – Jade hasn't yet come up with a clever enough name to call them when they're together – are singing an old Ginger Fox song onstage. Jade glares around at everything as Cat and Shapiro go up front to buy them all sodas. Shapiro is paying. He usually pays for things when Jade takes him out. He's always so grateful for rides to school, which she only does to make Cat happy.

She spies Beck sitting with a group of sophomore girls and glowers anew. She hadn't thought he'd actually be bringing people. Actually, she didn't think he'd bother to show up at all.

Shapiro comes over, dumb mouth open like he's about to speak, follows her icy gaze, and just squeaks and immediately trails back to the counter. "I think you might need a second soda," he mutters.

Cat and Andre sing a song together. Tori keeps flitting to and fro between Jade and Andre, her sister, and Beck and the sophomore squad, looking more and more frazzled, like any of this concerns her. Cat cajoles Shapiro to sing a song with his puppet. Poor boy should just stick to his guitar.

At one point, Beck puts his arm around Tori, and Jade spills her soda in rage. Cat and Shapiro run to get her a new one. Andre watches everything with interest. Tori looks scared.

Tori swoops back over to their table. "I totally didn't condone him putting his arm around me, Jade!" she hollers, looking terrified. "I would never - "

"Oh, shut up," Jade snaps, still glowering over at Beck, whose arm is now relegated to a sophomore's shoulder. Underclassmen! Jesus! For the love of Freddy Kruger! She thought he'd have more class. "Where the hell did he even find those girls?"

"The parking lot," says Shapiro, and then frantically guzzles his drink when Jade shoots him a dark look. "Oh," he says in great distress. "I didn't think this was carbonated. I probably shouldn't - "

"No one cares," Jade reminds him. "Just drink it." Shapiro nods sadly.

"You can be my date, Jade," Cat says graciously. "You can be all our dates, right?"

Andre and Tori nod emphatically. Shapiro looks around in great fear.

Cat makes her sing an Elton John song with her. Life sucks.

* * *

The weekend passes – on Friday night, Cat wants her to go to the mall with her and Vega, but Jade just – it's freaking Vega, who was the start of the whole problem, and she just really can't – she doesn't want to get kicked out of the mall, or go to jail for murdering anyone. She stays at Cat's house until after dinner, and she goes home when Cat's starting to get ready for her little date with Tori.

"It isn't a date!" squeals Cat. "Why do you always make jokes about me and Tori dating? Just because she has nice hair - !"

"Oh does she!" roars Jade.

"Not as nice as yours!" Cat squeals quickly. "But anyway, I like - " Jade stops listening and puts her boots on.

Then when she gets home it's absolutely horrible too, Dad and Sophia are actually home, and Dad and Jeff are just sitting on the couch together with popcorn and the TV on like they're actually a family or something. She'd hoped Jeff would be free to go light firecrackers in the yard.

"Oh," says her brother. "But we're going to watch Wall-E."

"I find it to be a fascinating social commentary," Dad says.

"Oh," says Jade.

Jeff looks at her excitedly, spilling popcorn all over himself and Dad. "Friday night is movie night!" he squeals.

"Oh," says Jade. She wouldn't know that, would she? She wouldn't be a part of that. How long have they just been being a family without her? Usually Dad works late on Fridays and Jeff is stuck with the babysitter.

"Why don't you watch it with us, Jade?" Sophia says, coming into the room with a fucking plate of _cookies_ just like a Stepford wife would. "And then next week you can pick the film. We always - "

"Oh, I bet you_ always_," Jade sneers. "What are you even doing home?"

Sophia looks confused. "I changed my schedule months ago. I always - "

"Jade, you aren't ever home," Jeff interrupts, looking at her mournfully. "You never want to spend time with us!"

"That's not true!" Jade sneers. Sophia takes her seat beside him. They all look at her expectantly.

Jade stands and looks at them all. She doesn't know – how they've come to fit together. There's not even room on the couch for her!

Jeff is snuggled up happily next to Dad, who doesn't even look stressed or confused by it. Jade has never been young enough to snuggle up beside Dad. By the time he'd actually started being_ Dad_, and not _Mr. West_, she'd been eleven, and that's too old to do weird baby things, and anyway, he'd hardly been home then, and she'd been stuck watching dumb baby Jeff all the time. She feels small and insanely jealous.

Dad looks at her hopefully. "I can make more popcorn," he says. "We even - "

"I'm busy anyway," Jade snaps, and tears up to her room. She actually has absolutely nothing to do, and she can't – text Beck or call him or go over and lay on him which is what she usually does when she's feeling depressed by her family. God, Beck is probably out on a date with some sophomore and she's just sitting up in her room almost crying because she doesn't know how to make her father love her.

Sometimes she and Beck could commiserate about their crappy families. Beck's dad is – Jade likes him, he's cool, and supportive of Beck's acting career. But he drinks too much, and Beck had gotten really mad at her once during sophomore year when he'd come home and Jade had just been mixing drinks in his kitchen. He'd been mad at both of them, really.

"That's not _normal_," he'd cried, later, to her when they were in the RV.

"It's just talking," Jade had said. "You told me to come over, I knew you were at play practice, it's not like he was hitting on me, for Christ's sakes."

"Jade, you're just a kid," Beck said emphatically, and winced when she glared. "Not a _kid _– you, I mean, he's my fucking dad, he shouldn't have you making drinks for him, we're_ teen_agers - "

Jade had just shrugged. "It's not a big deal," she said. "I've done it before."

Jade's mother had done a lot of drugs, and with that, she guesses, came drinking. Jade had known Mom's favorite drink was a vodka and cranberry since she was four. She sort of wanted to tell Beck that there's worse things than making your father a drink, but she just couldn't find the words. Beck didn't talk to his mom very much either, but that's just because she was living in Spain, and not because he'd been taken away because she was an unfit mother.

She wonders if Beck remembers these things, all she'd told him. She wishes she hadn't told him. It hadn't made them understand each other any better, had it?

She sits up in her room. She understands that she is very lonely. She's only got one friend and a sort of half – not even half, maybe quarter – loosely put-together family that she doesn't know how to be with. If she made Dad a drink he'd probably pass out.

She reads her books – she reads The Dark Tower and wishes Shapiro was done with Pet Sematary. She makes Cat a new layout for her SplashFace page. Since she's bored and still not tired, she makes her a second one to choose from. Cat will like the pink stars that fall from the cursor.

* * *

Then it's a new week and school is still terrible. Beck had called her on Sunday, but seeing his name come up on her PearPhone had just made her cry a little – actually _cry,_ and not just think about it, which had been scary, so she hadn't picked up. They glower at each other at their lockers and Jade loudly lies to Cat about being out with a senior yesterday. Cat, who knows it's a lie to make Beck jealous, beams glowingly and asks for many details.

In Improv, Sikowitz picks Tori and Beck to do a scene, and it's horrible, the most horrible thing in the world, it's like the first day Vega's transferred in all over again, but now it's worse, because Beck is trying to make her angry.

He and Tori are a married couple about to go into space. Tori looks overwhelmed and terrified. Jade tries to keep from exploding with anger. Andre, Cat, and the rest of the class watch with great interest.

"Twelve hours to launch, we should get some sleep, honey," Tori says, backed up against the chalkboard in utter terror.

Beck puts his arm around her, and Tori tries to smile for the fake camera. She puts her hand over his. "A kiss for good luck?" he asks.

He leans in.

Later, Jade doesn't even remember getting up and slapping him.

Tori falls away in great relief. She actually sits down on the floor, like the entire world is too overwhelming for her.

Beck just stares at her (Jade, that is, not Vega), in shock, his mouth open, a great rash of red blooming across the side of his face.

Jade may have yelled something like, "_What the fuck are you doing?_" but probably not, because she would never make such a display of emotion in school.

Beck touches the side of his face like he's been burnt. His lip darts out a little to worry his bottom lip, which is bleeding a little, and there's no way she would have done that either, struck him so hard. "Wow," he just says. "Trying to get you to care about something. Guess it finally worked."

Jade may have yelled, "Oh, fuck you!" She may have tried to swing at him again - she may have knocked over Cat's entire desk getting to him. Sikowitz had to grab her shoulder to stop her. Maybe he'd done that.

Beck stares. He stares some more. He says, "Fuck _me?_ You're unbelievable!"

Jade wrenches herself out of Sikowitz's grasp. "What are you trying to prove here?" she demands. Beck stares some more, takes a step towards her. She backs up, steps on Sikowitz and growls. Sikowitz makes a scared noise and quickly busies himself at his desk, probably calling the principal on them.

"Don't you fucking touch me," Jade tells Beck.

He does anyway. He snarls and grabs her arm, and he just drags her out of the classroom. She catches a glance of Cat's fearful face as she's pulled out.

Really, it's one of the most embarrassing moments of her life, and she'd rather not relive it. Honestly, she's so angry, she doesn't really remember most of it. Beck accuses her of being cold-hearted. She tells him he's a slut. He asks how he can be a slut when apparently he was never even in a relationship to begin with? Jade tells him to go to a very hot place. Beck tells her she's impossible. She shoves at him, and he shoves her back (she doesn't blame him).

Lane and Principal Helen have to come flying down the hallway to separate them. Jade lets Lane start to lead her away, thinks about it, starts getting mad again, then elbows him in the waist and comes back and shoves at Beck again. He yells and wonders if she knows just how crazy she is.

"I'll show you crazy!" Jade screams, and then Lane has caught her arm again, and they both get dragged to the principals office and lectured and they get suspended for the rest of the day and told they're lucky they aren't _expelled._

Dad is at work, so Sophia has to come and get her. She lectures Jade the whole ride home. "What were you _thinking?_" she cries. "You are so lucky I was able to speak to the principal! This could have gone on your _record_! Imagine if your father had come!"

Dad would have stammered and looked overwhelmed and they'd probably both have been shipped to the middle east to be stoned to death. At a different time, maybe the thought would be funny.

Jade puts her head in her hands. "Boys suck," she says.

Sophia takes pause and looks sad. "Yes," she says. "Believe me, I know."

The thought that Sophia might actually know, maybe more than Jade could ever think, strikes her hard for some reason. "Yeah," she says.

"Well," says Sophia. "What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know," Jade says into her hands.

Sophia doesn't yell anymore. She takes Jade to get her nails done.

* * *

After that, it's pretty clear to the entire universe that Beck and Jade aren't speaking. They don't even sit together at lunch any more. Shapiro has missed half the week, and when he comes back on Thursday, he looks very overwhelmed as he stands in the courtyard, looking back and forth - first to Jade and Cat, then over at Andre, Beck, and Tori, before finally slinking over to her and Cat.

Jade doesn't speak to him, doesn't explain. Shapiro sits close to Cat, looking fearful and eating his chicken. Cat is pretty quiet, too. She doesn't understand why Jade is so angry. Jade can't really bring herself to talk to her, either.

Sometimes, Cat wants to go and talk to Tori - "Tori'd love to sit with us," Cat squeaks out nervously, "she just thinks you'd kill her."

"She's a smart girl," Jade snarls – so sometimes Jade is left alone. She idly wonders if Cat is leaving her, too. She doesn't really know how to stop it.

One day at lunch she's alone and then there's a rustle as Shapiro settles down across from her, watching her warily with his bug eyes and clutching his dumb puppet.

Jade watches him with interest. He hovers over the table awkwardly, clutching his lunch sack.

"You don't have to sit with me," she tells him, utterly mortified at the thought that Shapiro of all people might be taking pity on her. "In fact, I'd be happier if you didn't."

Shapiro looks skinny and determined. He sits across from her. He says, "I want to use one of my days."

God help her, he's not supposed to remember this shit! For Christmas last year, he'd bought her a present – books, of course, and she loves books, so she'd been touched – and she hadn't gotten him anything. The pull of holiday spirit had been too great, so she'd told him, in accordance with the holiday, she'd give him twelve days where she'd be nice to him. Like the Twelve Days of Christmas, but not, because she thinks he might be Jewish.

She snarls a little bit, now. Shapiro quavers in fear but doesn't move away. She looks at him with disdain. Why's he always got to cart that stupid dummy around? He'd be far less embarrassing if he'd ditch it. She mutters, "I should have added some sort of puppet clause."

Shapiro makes a bit display of setting Rex down on the ground beside them, holding his hands up in a little surrender as he once more settles down across from her. It'd almost be amusing, if she wasn't in such a horrible mood.

They eat their lunch in relative silence. Shapiro doesn't try to talk to her, which is a good thing. She can't help but think he'd be much happier across the courtyard, laughing and giggling and talking with Cat and Beck and Andre and Tori. She says again, "Seriously, Shapiro, you don't have to stay here."

Shapiro finishes his apple. He puts it in his bag, considers his water bottle. He says, very bravely, "I'm just eating my lunch here, West."

Shapiro being direct without the aide of his puppet very nearly makes her keel over. She can't help but smirk at him. "All right then, Freakzoid," she says. Shapiro smiles.

Everything that comes after, Jade would tell you, is all his fault.

**Author's Note: I'm trying very hard to keep these events true to those in TYSW. It was hard for me to write the Jade/Beck fight scene in Chapter Six of that, and it was even harder for me to do it here. At the time in TYSW, I hadn't planned on writing Rade or even making Jade a main character yet, so I hadn't really plotted it out in my head.**

**Anyway – I hope you all can see what I'm doing here. I think that most of you have read TYSW, and Jade comments a lot in it that Robbie doesn't show his emotions, but do you see her doing the exact same thing? Also, I haven't written very much Rade at all up until this point, because, much like Robbie, Jade hasn't been focused very much on him at all until now.**

**Excited to write the next few chapters! And I have a little twist that I've been planning for a while that I know none of you will have guessed about. :)**

**Next chapter, Robbie will meet Jefferson, and Ali will be introduced.**

**So much for keeping these chapters mostly under 3k. God help me, this will NOT be as long as TYSW!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

**AN: Gah, thought I posted this this morning, but it didn't go through!  
**

A bit of time passes. September ends, and it takes the heat wave with it. Jade steals Cat's brother's trenchcoat to wear to school. Cat begins to stock up on candy and bat-shaped headbands.

Jade steels herself up for winter – well, southern California's version of it, anyway. She doesn't speak to Beck. Over the weekend, she hangs out with Cat. She watches The Nightmare Before Christmas with her brother, father, and stepmother.

Jefferson looks wildly offended. "Jade," he says, like she hadn't caught him happily eating Gummi Bears and watching Winnie the Pooh earlier, "this is for _babies._"

Dad and Sophia watch their children interact with interest and detached confusion. Jade thinks that she and Jeff have a rather good relationship, actually, when she bothers with being home. She doesn't know why everyone automatically associates yelling with _fighting_.

"I don't want you to get too scared," Jade says, and steals his last Gummi Worm.

"I would not be too scared!" Jeff hollers indignantly, punching at her, the brat, and then cries anyway at Oogie Boogie.

Did Jade mention that she isn't speaking to Beck? They avoid each other whenever possible. Sikowitz notes this, and stops pairing them together in Improv. Wisely, he doesn't pair Beck and Tori together either.

"Beck is such a jerk," Tori declares after what Jade has come to think of _The Incident_, swooping over to the lunch table where she, Cat, and Shapiro are sitting one day that first week in October. "I'm not speaking to him!" She opens up her milk carton with gusto, still muttering, as if anyone cares. "Using me to rile you up! Like I'm a piece of meat! I mean, hello, I have a _boyfriend._"

Tori has been dating a boy from the next county over, some loser named Sven or Steve or Steig. She and Cat had met him at the mall when Cat had tripped over him coming out of Glitter Gloss. Jade's seen his picture on The Slap with Tori, and she thinks he looks like a great big nerd.

"What sort of meat?" Cat asks, and Tori looks briefly confused, because Cat's missed the point as always.

"Oh, I don't know," she says ponderingly. "Maybe chicken? Everyone likes chicken, right?"

"Beck doesn't," Jade says absently, and then scowls at herself – firstly for mentioning Beck, secondly for talking to Vega.

"Oh," says Vega with much disdain. "Well, _definitely_ chicken, then. A meat he doesn't even care about! Who doesn't like chicken?! What a whack-job."

"Yeah!" says Shapiro with force, then looks guilty for badmouthing his friend.

"Can you even eat chicken, Shapiro?" Jade asks.

Shapiro looks offended. "Yes I can eat chicken!" he says. "You've seen me eat chicken, Jade! I can eat lots of things!"

"Oh, I bet you can," Jade says sweetly.

Shapiro frowns, wondering if he should be offended. Jade tries not to smile. He's so easy.

It's the first day that Tori's sat with them, bringing their lunch table to a grand count of four. Now that she and Beck are completely defunct, it's just been her, Cat, and Shapiro together over at one of the small tables at the end of the courtyard. Tori usually sits over with Beck and Andre, but since _The Incident _she's been sitting with her sister, not really wanting to pick sides. Jade briefly wonders how she's managed to win out over Beck, even though he's apparently treated Tori like a piece of chicken or something.

Sometimes Cat goes over to sit with Tori, or to talk to Andre, and then it's just her and Shapiro, who is sort of like an irritating bug or an ingrown hair that just won't go away. When she's bored, though, Jade will allow herself to talk to him. It's not like it matters, since she's already going through the horrors of being seen with him, and it's nothing important, anyway.

Shapiro is – well, he's pretty bad, but he's not_ that_ bad, you know. She makes him do her Geometry homework for her, and sometimes they talk about books. Shapiro is a pretty fast reader, and he's finished Pet Sematary. They compare it to the movie, and he makes her laugh a little, imitating the character's accents. Sometimes he can almost be sort of funny, if he really lets himself go. They have a class together – Literature in the Media, and all they do in it is watch movies and listen to their teacher go on about the environment. Ms Berenkowski is really wacky. She's young and annoying and likes to wear paisley prints and bandanas and really needs to invest in a bra.

"I felt very uncomfortable when she rubbed my shoulders today," Shapiro tells her now, once the subject has been pulled away from Tori being chicken. "I think her top was in blatant violation of the dress code. And why does she have to _touch_ everyone? There's nothing wrong with my chi."

Jade starts laughing. "Maybe you should report her to the principal," she says, "for sexual harassment."

"Maybe I should," Shapiro says, looking darkly at his soy milk bottle.

Tori and Cat smirk a little and watch them. They think the stories about Ms Berenkowski ("Call me Phoebe!") are funny. Tori had really enjoyed the one about Shapiro's bookbag getting caught in one of her hanging mobiles she has strung up in the classroom.

Jade looks at her friends being happy, realizes she's actually being sort of nice to Shapiro and Vega, and then scowls at them to make sure they know their places.

Shapiro clears his throat and exchanges a sort of nervous look at Cat, who smiles blithely at him for a moment before her eyes clear and she starts to frown too.

"Oh," says Cat. "Um, Jade ..."

Oh Christ. What, is her bra showing again and Shapiro's getting all scandalized?

"What?" she snaps.

Cat gives Robbie another scared look. "Um, we talked … to … Beck yesterday," she says slowly.

Jade gives forth a rather loud snarling noise.

"Yeah," says Shapiro. "Um, he gave me some of your stuff."

Jade growls again.

"So," says Cat, "that's in, that's in Robbie's locker, and Andre has, uh, the rest of it. If you, if you want it back."

"Why can't he just bring my shit to me?" Jade demands. "What, I'm so scary? He has to go through you two?"

Shapiro and Cat share another glance, which annoys her greatly, so she growls again. Vega becomes very preoccupied with her sandwich.

"Well," says Cat, "I mean, we know you guys don't really want to talk right now. So we just, I mean, I know you want your Friends DVDs back - "

"I love Friends!" burbles out Vega.

"So do me and Jade!" exclaims Cat.

"What's that?" Shapiro asks. "A TV show?"

Jade growls.

"Nevermind," says Shapiro quickly.

"Totally not important," says Tori. She takes the world's biggest bite out of her ham sandwich.

Cat adjusts her headband – orange and black, with little fuzzy rabbit ears on it – and looks at Jade haltingly. "Jade?" she intimates. "So do you want your stuff?"

Jade watches Beck from across the courtyard. "I guess so," she mutters.

Cat nods. "Kay kay," she says in a small voice.

Tori sends another glower over towards Beck, too. "Sitting with sophomores!" she says. "How droll!"

How droll of Vega to use a word like 'droll,' Jade thinks, but she's too weary to insult her some more - the girl's already a chicken leg, apparently. "Who's that girl he's with anyway?" she asks, trying very hard to sound like she doesn't care.

Shapiro slurps his soy milk obnoxiously. "That's Alison," he says. "She's in orchestra. She's doing the music for the play. She's nice."

Cat and Tori glower at him.

"I mean," says Shapiro nervously, "she's gross. So gross! And short."

"So short," says Tori.

"Way too short," agrees Cat, who is a stunning five foot nothing.

"I really don't care," Jade says firmly. "Caring? Not. You guys don't have to get all Mean Girls for me."

Only Vega looks heartened at the reference, which makes Jade unhappy.

* * *

Lit Media is the most useless class in the world, and Jade had known it signing up, but she wishes their teacher wasn't such a freak. She and Shapiro exchanged a disgusted glance as Berenkowski clears a space in the corner of the room for a hideous poodle sculpture.

"What do you guys think?" Berenkowski asks the class, waving her arms with gusto.

"Best one yet!" Jade chirrups brightly.

Shapiro turns an interesting shade of purple as he tries not to laugh.

"Robert," Mrs B asks seriously, frowning over at him, "are you quite all right?"

Shapiro squeaks. "Fine!" he says quickly, lest she come over and try to massage his chi some more.

Berenkowski gives him a doubtful look anyway. "You're always so tense, Rob," she says, touching his shoulder as she walks by him to the front of the room. Shapiro looks at her in mortification, and then touches his shoulder delicately, like he's trying to rub off sexual assault.

Also: _Rob and Robert!_ Two names that no one else calls him ever. He's just _Robbie_. Jade rolls her eyes discreetly

("Rob is someone, like, way cooler than me," Shapiro says later at lunch when she brings this up, "and Robert is my _dad._" Jade looks interested, because Shapiro hardly ever mentions his father – it's always, _my sister did this yesterday_, or _my mother says that _blah blah no one cares_,_ but then he just looks very pensive, and gets up and runs off to brush his teeth, because he is the _weirdest person in the entire universe)_.

Anyway, now Ms B is leaning on her desk and gesturing and saying something boring as usual. Oh, god, they have to do a_ project?_ So much for getting to sleep for an extra period (because, come on, there's no way she's going to make it through the whole year by staying awake in Geometry), Jade thinks dismally.

Ms B moves around the classroom in a slow, tye-dyed hippie haze, making them all write their names and put them into an ugly knit hat she's made and still explaining their project. They'll have to take a written work and turn it into a screenplay, submit it to her, and once she's approved it, they'll make a short film out of it. It can be any sort of literature they want – a book, a poem, a short story, a play. They just have to stay true to dialogue.

Jade's sort of interested, even though the last time she made a short film, no one cared. She's not very thrilled at the thought of having to partner up, though. She's been told she doesn't _exactly_ work well with others. Well, maybe she can talk to Ms B after class. It'll probably be way more work to do everything by herself, but it might be worth it. She doesn't think that any of the kids in the class would want to be partnered with her, anyway. She -

"Jade West," Ms B reads out, tossing the little scrap of paper with Jade's name on it onto her desk, "you can look forward to spending a lot of time with - " she reaches into the ugly hat again, digs around, smiles fitfully when she sees the name she's pulled out - "Robbie Shapiro."

Oh. Kay.

Very slowly, she turns in her seat to look at Shapiro, who's looking back at her. He raises his eyebrows (he can't do just one like she can). He shrugs. He smiles a little.

Jade considers him for a long moment. Yeah, why the hell not. She can make him do all the technical stuff, right?

She smirks back at him, looks over to the teacher, rolls her eyes skyward. Shapiro grins.

* * *

It takes her and Shapiro two weeks to decide that they're going to be using a Stephen King story, and another two weeks after that to decide which one, because Shapiro needs to read at least _some_ of them, you know. They want to do a short story, because – seriously, have you read any of his books? Probably not, because they're all like five hundred pages long. Jade also wants to make sure they pick one that hasn't already been adapted into a film, as she doesn't want Berenkowski to make any unfair comparisons.

"Not like she's seen or read any of them, probably," she crabs one day as they're sitting in the library with Cat (Cat's looking sort of bored, as she usually does when they start to talk about the screenplay). "I bet all she ever reads is, like, feminist literature. And not even Elizabeth Wurtzel."

"Definitely not," agrees Shapiro absently, his huge nose buried in Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

Jade goes on, "Oh, and I bet she just_ loves_ – like, The Doors. I bet she thinks Jim Morrison is _so tragic_. He's a poet, you know! Drugs are so tragic, Shapiro! God, she's a moron."

Shapiro smiles into his book. "You seem sort of mad at her today," he says.

"She told me to be quiet!" Jade hollers, earning them a dark glower from the library. "I was talking about _the project_. How the hell was I supposed to know she wanted my attention? God, and I bet she just _loves_ The Beatles."

"Yeah, I bet John Lennon is her favorite one," Shapiro says, still smiling.

"I hate John Lennon!" Jade rants. "He is the worst Beatle! The worst! Who cares about John Lennon? I like – um, uh – Ring-Ding! Ringo. Starlett. That one."

"John Lennon beat his first wife," Shapiro says conversationally, turning a page in his book. "I bet Mrs Berenkowski doesn't know that."

Shapiro is so smart sometimes! He astounds her! "I bet she doesn't!" Jade says in much glee. "She sucks!"

Cat looks sad. "I like George Harrison, though," she says. "What about him? Did he beat his wife?"

"No!" says Shapiro, looking scandalized. "No, he didn't!"

"Well, does he - "

"Jesus, Cat, shut up, you're going to get us kicked out of the library!" Jade hollers.

* * *

Shapiro may sort of be a genius, since he figured out what story they should cover for Lit Media, and he knows lots of obscure facts about musicians from the nineteen-sixties, but he also can't drive, and that's annoying. They can't spend all their time in the library, especially after Cat spills her soda all over the M encyclopedia and they all get kicked out and banned for the rest of the week, so Jade drives him to her house one day.

"You need to get your license soon," she admonishes him, half-parking considerately in Sophia's flower garden. "When are you going to learn?"

"Beck will teach me," Shapiro says, looking nervous at even mentioning _his_ name. "Once he's, um, not busy."

"Oh, you mean once he's done sleeping with half the underclassmen at Hollywood Arts," Jade snarls viciously. Shapiro – wait for it – looks scandalized. He follows her timidly as she gets out of her car and clomps up the porch steps.

Shapiro looks around once they're inside. "Your house is nice," he tells her, tripping over some of Jeff's Kinnex.

"Oh, shut up!" Jade hollers. "And don't mess up that Ferris wheel – my brother spent all weekend on it."

"Cool," says Shapiro, looking at the Kinnex carnival strewn about in the foyer in reverence. _Boys!_ They are so dumb!

"My brother is seven," Jade says crabbily, tossing Mike's trenchcoat into the closer. "His shit's everywhere, sorry."

"Um," says Shapiro, sidestepping a heap of matchbox cars, "that's all right."

"Our maid was stealing the silverware last year," Jade tells him, and motions for him to follow her up the stairs. She can't bring him into the den, because Stepmonster is redecorating and had threatened her and Jeff's lives this morning. "I told Sophia it wasn't Michael! God, she never listens to me. Anyway, we haven't found a new one yet."

"Oh," says Shapiro, looking a bit overwhelmed at all this information. When they reach the end of the hall, Shapiro hovers in the doorway of her bedroom nervously.

Jade glares at him. "You can come in," she sneers. "You act like you've never been in a girl's bedroom before! Actually – what am I saying, Christ. Don't worry, there's not any glitter or, like, pads strewn about."

Shapiro looks ever the more terrified. "Okay," he says. Jade glares again for good measure.

"Leave your puppet in the hall," she tells him. "That thing gives me the creeps. Why do you take it everywhere?"

"You never know when the urge for improvisation will strike," Shapiro says, quoting Sikowitz (he'd been shocked when Jade told him that Sikowitz was her favorite teacher) and making her have to bite down on a smile. "I always need to practice. And he's not creepy. My sister picked him out!" He sets Rex down outside the doorway anyway.

Jade rolls her eyes and sits on her bed, starting to pull out all her books. "God, is your whole family so weird?" she grunts.

Shapiro looks sad. "Probably," he says. He sits at her desk, turning the chair around so that he can look at her. "I like your room," he says.

Jade rolls her eyes. There's practically nothing in here, not since she's gotten rid of all the stuff that's reminded her of Beck - and she's anticipated Shapiro coming over, so Secret Bear is sequestered safely in the closet. "Do you like _purple?_" she asks him. "Is it your special color?"

Shapiro rolls his eyes at her. Oh, he's getting bold! She throws a crumpled up piece of paper at him to put him in his place. Shapiro, used to this, bats it away absently and starts taking out his own books. "Did you finish rereading The Sun Dog?" he asks her.

Jade rolls her eyes back at him. "Of course I did," she says. The Sun Dog is a novella that they've picked out for their Lit Media project. It's about a kid who gets a camera for his birthday, but all the pictures he takes come out wrong, pictures of a rabid dog that wants to break out of the camera. It's pretty cool. Shapiro says that they can take pictures of his neighbor's dog for those parts of the film. Jade thinks she can Photoshop it to look pretty neat.

Anyway, they're supposed to be working on the script first, not daydreaming about shots and camera angles. "Okay," says Jade, clicking her pen into action. She looks expectantly at him from over her notebook. "Start reading to me."

"Huh?" says Shapiro in confusion.

"The book, idiot! Start reading it to me. I can capture the dialogue better that way. You can skip around, I guess, when they aren't talking."

Shapiro looks scandalized, but picks up his copy of the book anyway. "Um, okay," he says doubtfully. "Do you, um, want me to do – voices or something?"

Jade rolls her eyes very hard. "I don't care," she says. "Would you just start?"

"Fine!" squawks Shapiro, opening his book, all flustered for no reason. "Um, okay, I'll read the first paragraph, I guess, so you can capture the setting, oh unless you - ?"

Jade glares. Shapiro squeaks. He clears his throat and starts to read. He doesn't sound so nerdy when he's reading Stephen King, Jade thinks graciously.

An hour later, they've actually gotten through the first few chapters, and Jade has about ten pages of dialogue jotted down in her weird cursive shorthand that no one else in the world can read. Shapiro's starting to sound pretty scratchy, so she thinks she'll cut him a break soon. Maybe she'll even let him have a glass of water. That's nice, right? She can be nice when she wants -

"Hey Jade!" hollers Jefferson, bursting into the room like an ugly demon child without even knocking, "whose doll is this in the hall? Do you - " He stops when he spies Robbie. "Oh," he says, flat and rude (Jade's heart swells with pride). "Who are you?"

Shapiro smiles awkwardly. "Hi," he says. "I'm Robbie."

Jeff looks at Shapiro in moderate disgust, which is nice. He turns to Jade. "Is this your new boyfriend?" he demands.

Jade practically falls off her bed in disgust as Shapiro turns purple. "No way!" she shouts.

Jeff looks skeptical. "Is he _going_ to be?" he asks.

"I really don't think you have to worry about that," says Shapiro, who is, fantastically, actually the color of a wilted eggplant.

Jade waves her arm around. "This is Roberto!" she tells Jeff. "Puppet Boy!"

Jeff frowns a little bit, then his face clears and he grins. "Oh!" he says. "Macaulay!"

Shapiro looks confused. "Um," he says, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "Why do you - " he thinks. "Oh, I see. Because – the Puppet Master. That, that's clever."

Jeff beams.

Having Jeff and Shapiro in her room at the same time simply causes her too much pain, so she leads the boys downstairs and into the kitchen. Shapiro sits at the counter, looking out into the foyer, as Jeff bounces around, getting drinks for them all.

"Do you want chocolate milk?" he asks Robbie.

Shapiro looks greatly saddened. "Yes," he says, "I do. But I can't drink milk."

Jeff looks horrified, and staggers back dramatically (Jade sighs). "Why not?" he cries. "What's wrong with you?"

Shapiro actually looks amused by him! "I'm allergic," he says.

"Shapiro can't eat or drink anything," Jade says.

Jeff looks more horrified. Jade amends, "He can eat _some_ things, dorkus."

"Oh," says Jeff in relief. He hands Jade the last can of pineapple soda, casting it a longing gaze. Jade takes it happily. He gives Shapiro a water bottle, still eyeing Jade's soda can. Jade makes a big display of sipping at it delicately.

"Jade," Jeff asks poutily, "are you going to give me that soda tab?"

"Yes bird brain," Jade says. Shapiro looks confused, so Jade tells him, "If he collects five thousand he gets to meet some superhero or some shit. I think."

"I get to meet Nug-Nug," Jeff says importantly. "He is not a superhero! He's a mindbender. He's from Galaxy Wars."

"He isn't a superhero, Jade," Shapiro tells her. God help her.

"Thanks for reiterating," she says dryly.

Jeff stands around, looking at them hopefully. He's just gotten home from school, she guesses. She wonders if he actually wore his Batman cape to school or if he'd just put it on as soon as he came through the door. She hopes he's worn it. Last year, his teachers had had to have a meeting with Dad and Sophia about Jeff's outfits being a hazard in the classroom.

"What're you guys doing?" Jeff asks, bouncing a little on his heels, clearly wanting attention. Jade glares.

"We're doing homework, Beeker. We have a project."

"Oh," says Jeff, disappointed.

Shapiro drinks his water, looking at Jefferson consideringly. He glances out into the foyer once more. He says, "I really like your Ferris wheel."

Jeff beams. He doesn't leave them alone for the rest of the afternoon.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

Halloween is the stupidest holiday, Jade decides. It falls on a Friday this year, and Cat has been carrying on about it all week – all month, really, but she's been getting more and more manic (read between the lines: more and more annoying) as October draws to a close.

"We can make matching costumes if you want," Cat offers nicely, four days before it. "We can be Buster and Arthur!"

Who the hell?! "I don't think I'm wearing a costume this year," Jade tells her, and Cat looks disappointed. Jade doesn't tell her that it's because she can't spend any money. At the end of January, The Arcade Fire is going to be playing in LA, and she wants to buy tickets for her and Cat. They're one of Cat's favorite bands – they'd played a song in a preview for the Where the Wild Things Are movie, which is how the girls had discovered them. Jade had known Cat would like them, so she'd made her a CD. Freshman year, the girls had gone to see them, and it had been okay. No one had kicked them in the face, which was always nice. Face-jabs from sweaty industrial kids aren't really the good kind of hurt, Jade had mused once, and Cat agreed.

Cat pouts some more, looking like the world's most adult baby with her new red lipstick. That was actually a very strange and dumb metaphor, and Jade blames it on all her time spent with Shapiro recently. "Will you wear a costume if I can get you one?" Cat wheedles.

"Ack," says Jade.

Cat's eyes bug out in sadness. Jade sighs.

"Maybe just to school," she says.

"YAYA!" Cat hollers, right in her ear, so Jade had shoved her into the foyer, and Cat squealed, knocking over Jeff's Kinnex Ferris wheel. She picks herself up, rubs her elbow, pouts a bit, then commences being happy. "I'll talk to my brother!" she cries out. "He's been in, like, the _best _mood this week! Last night he took me and Andre to see the Ginger Fox biopic - "

Jade snarls very much, and Cat trails off with a sharp squeak of horror, covering her mouth as she realizes her mistake.

"I thought you were going to see that with me and Shapiro this weekend!" Jade hollers (Jade doesn't actually care about Ginger Fox. But Shapiro had been mooning over Cat on Monday, and had asked her to go, because he knows that Cat likes her. Cat had looked unsure, so Jade had started screaming about how no one ever asks her to the movies, partly to annoy Shapiro, and partly because she knew exactly what he would do – look scared and invite her too. After that, Cat had beamed and said they could all go).

"Oh," says Cat, still looking scared, and pulls her hands away. She's smeared her lipstick, Jade notes. She looks idiotic either way. She probably went out and bought it with Vega. It's much too orange-y for her complexion. "But, Jade! Just, my brother! Said he would take me! And you were studying with Robbie and I didn't want to bother you because Jade I really don't want to go back in the washing machine so I was texting Andre and he didn't want to stay home with his grandmother so then I _called _Andre and he said - "

"Cat," Jade interrupts, "I don't actually care."

"Oh." Cat visibly calms, smoothing her hair down. Nicely, she says, "You can still go with Robbie this weekend."

"Vomit," says Jade. Cat giggles, then looks guilty, covering her face with her hands again.

Jade ends up having to spend money anyway – she and Cat go out to Fiesta City and she buys a bottle of stage blood but that's it. Cat had brought over a tub of suspect-looking liquid earlier, then looked nervous and chagrined when Jade had questioned her.

"You wanted _fake_ blood?" she'd asked squeakily. "Um … I'll tell my brother." She'd trailed sadly away with the bucket.

Jade had felt only mildly squicked out. Michael worked for a butcher on the weekends, she knew, but that still doesn't mean she wanted to cover herself in pig's blood. She did rather sympathize with Carrie White, but not _that much._

Since the holiday falls on a school day – but a Friday, thank Freddy, most of the kids are wearing their costumes. Jade's stage blood hasn't quite dried yet, and she leaves a trail of sticky footprints down the main hall of Hollywood Arts as they're coming in. Cat bounces after her in a bright yellow sweater and thick glasses (they look suspiciously like Shapiro's from freshman year with the lenses knocked out). Jade's sort of curious as to who the hell Cat is supposed to be, but as she'd been up all night listening to Jeff swish excitedly around in his new hideous Nug-Nug costume, she's too weary to ask and hear the surely long-winded explanation.

"Wow," says Andre, looking her up and down, when they reach their lockers. He's wearing bunny ears and a powder-blue sweater in the same cut as Cat's. She guesses they're supposed to match. She wonders just when exactly Cat had had the time to coordinate with Andre. She'll have to start monitoring her better. "That's um, a lot of blood. You supposed to be anyone specific?"

Jade thinks about it. "Maybe myself. This isn't my blood, you know. This is after I killed and dismembered Vega."

Andre raises his eyebrows, which makes the rabbit ears on his head shift comically. Nicely, Jade adds, "_Hypothetically_, of course."

"She'll be glad to hear that," Andre tells her, without missing a beat. He turns to Cat. "Ready for class, Little Red?"

Cat looks at him severely and pushes her glasses up on her nose (Jade's _positive_ they're Shapiro's now – seeing Cat do that gesture has brought back waves of irritation that can only be associated with Shapiro being a hopeless dork).

"Oh right," says Andre. "Uh, ready for class, Arthur?"

Cat beams. "Sure am, Buster Baxter!" she chirrups.

Who the hell!

"Who the hell?!" cries Jade.

Andre and Cat regard her sadly.

"Jade had a very challenged childhood," Cat tells Andre, rather not-discreetly since Jade is right there. Jade growls, and Andre looks more nervous than usual, probably because of all the fake blood, which is nice. The two of them wait for her as she kicks at her locker until it finally deems to open and gathers her books for the morning, then the trio walks to Improv together.

In the classroom, Shapiro is already at his desk, wearing an off-white blanket (it's sort of tinged pink, which Jade nicely mentions. From under it, Shapiro huffs loudly. "My sister did the wash this week," he tells her), with two holes cut out for eyes and his stupid Woody Allen glasses covering it. He is the world's saddest ghost.

"Robbie!" Cat pouts. "I said to wear a _good_ costume!"

Shapiro makes a distressed motion from under the sheet. "I'm sorry," he says, "I couldn't exactly go out and buy one. This is the only thing I could find."

Cat collapses into her seat beside him. "I wish you'd get your driver's license," she tells him sorrowfully. "Then we could all see you more!"

Jade grunts, because she's had to see Shapiro after school every day for the last week!

Shapiro turns to her now. "You smell overwhelmingly like peppermints," he tells her. "It's nice."

Jade stares at him. Ghost-Shapiro looks back, unwavering. His sheets flutter a bit as Sikowitz sweeps past him to his desk at the front of the class.

"The stage blood is mint flavored," she says. "Wanna lick me?"

The sheets quaver in fear. "No thank you," says Shapiro. Cat giggles. "Cat," says Shapiro suddenly from under the blankets, "are those my old glasses?"

Cat looks guilty, and pushes them up on her nose once more. "You said I could borrow them!"

Shapiro reaches out a ghost-hand to poke at her face. "Cat!" he squeals. "Did you pop the lenses?"

"I have them safe in my bookbag!" She pouts hugely at him. The sheet remains skeptical, so she flutters her eyelashes for good measure, pushing her lower lip out a bit more.

Shapiro hesitates, then sends her a quick moonbeams/sunshine gaze from under his sheet. "That's okay, I guess," he says lovingly. Jade tries not to puke.

Beck comes over, cracking up, either dressed as a greaser or just a douchebag in a white T-shirt and leather jacket, to pull on Shapiro's sheet. "Why are you all pink, Robbie?" he asks.

Shapiro flutters about, insulted. "My sister did the wash!" he squawks again.

"Ah," says Beck, like this makes a lot of sense, then takes pause as he notes Cat and Jade. "Um," he says carefully, "hey."

Cat quavers for a moment, probably unsure if they still hate Beck, as Jade hasn't mentioned him for the past ten days, then says nicely, "Hi hi."

Jade restrains herself very much from growling. Then she says, "Hey."

Beck smiles hesitantly. Jade quickly turns to her book, definitely not smiling back. Shapiro looks back and forth between them nervously, or maybe he's just having a conniption fit. A girl can dream, can't she?

"I pulled some more dialogue for our script," he tells Jade. "You want my copy of the book?"

"Yeah, sure," Jade says absently, still trying to ignore Beck's presence. Shapiro casts a dark glance over to Sikowitz, who's arranging the Halloween pumpkins on his desk, before covertly taking out the book of novellas and handing it to her under his own desk. Shapiro is very nervous about reading in class since Sikowitz had battered him about with the book last week, lambasting him for daring to read. Jade had found it rather hilarious, and likes to beat Shapiro with anything everywhere, while intoning loudly, "A classroom is no place for reading!"

Things like that make her happy. She takes the book from Shapiro, continues pretending Beck doesn't exist.

* * *

"Shapiro's _not_ going to show up," Jade says flatly, and Cat looks up from her phone and pouts at her. "I'm just saying! He like never leaves his house on Friday nights. He's wacko."

"I _know_," Cat says, still pouting, and finishes texting him anyway. It's later that night, and they're at a stupid costume party at some girl's house – a friend of Cat and Vega. Some girl from Cat's history class. Jade hasn't bothered to learn her name. Vega's in the kitchen across from them, dressed up as the Sugar Plum Fairy (_she would be_, Jade thinks darkly), and Cat is still fluttering around in her idiotic yellow sweater. Jade's stage blood is dried and crackling off at this point. She's added a lot of eye-makeup once they'd gotten home from school, and she looks like a long-dead corpse now.

Jade smiles evilly. Sweetly, she suggests, "Maybe he'll come out to play if you promise to kiss him."

Cat makes a horrible face, making the glasses almost fall off her nose. She squeals, "_Ewwww!_"

Jade laughs before she can help herself, then feels sort of bad, because – shit, she guesses Shapiro is, you know, sort of her friend, and she doesn't make fun of friends behind their backs – only to their faces. "Wow," she comments lightly, "that was an ew with, like, four whole w's."

Cat wrinkles her nose up and scrunches her mouth. "It's just, it's _Robbie,_" she says exaggeratedly, flailing her arms and accidentally hitting an underclassman who's walking by. "He's just so – I don't know, I wish you wouldn't joke about that, Jade." She crinkles her nose up some more.

Jade raises her eyebrows. "It's not really joking," she says. She adds, "He's _in luv_ with you."

Cat throws her head back and cries, "_Gross_, please stop!"

"You probably shouldn't be so nice to him, then," Jade says, trying to keep her voice even and upbeat, because she thinks the whole school knows how much Cat flirts with Robbie, even if _she's_ unaware of it. "You probably, like, give _him_ hope."

"I don't give him hope!" cries Cat. "I treat him like everyone else!"

"I guess so," Jade says doubtfully, picking up the entire bowl of candy that's been set out on the counter and claiming it for herself, "but you shouldn't."

Cat pouts, following Jade back to the couch, where they sit. "I mean, I love Robbie," she starts.

Jade puckers her mouth up and makes kissing noises. Cat squeals and throws some candy corn at her face. "But not like that!" she squeals.

Jade shrugs. She's already a little bored with talking about the utter non-relationship of Cat and Robbie. You'd think Shapiro would get the hint by now. Then again, it's Cat, so there's a lot of different hints. She _had_ kissed his nose once. Anyway, sometimes she just - feels sort of bad for the kid.

"I know that," she tells Cat, deciding not to tease her anymore tonight, because Cat's been nice enough to invite her along with her and Vega so she doesn't have to sit inside and count wallpaper swatches with Stepmonster. "Just, maybe make sure he knows it. Or he'll keep bugging you."

"He doesn't bug me!" says Cat, completely missing the point. She grabs at some candy corn and chews obnoxiously. Her PearPhone buzzes, and she responds happily, clicking away.

"Who's that?" Jade asks, leaning over, unable to help herself. "Is it Gepetto? Are you going to climb up his flowing locks and rescue him from the tower of chastity?"

Cat throws her head back and giggles. "You're mixing up your fairy tales!" she tells Jade. "And no, it's Andre. He's coming soon! I need my buddy, you know." She tugs at her yellow sweater for emphasis.

Interesting. Jade leans back against the couch cushions and eats some more candy.

* * *

That next day, Saturday, she's up too early for her liking. She pads quietly down to the kitchen and sets up the coffee maker, goes to the front and back door, turning off the outside lights. She's reading the paper, curled up at the table, when Dad wanders downstairs, looking sleepy and awesome in a purple plaid robe. He sits down and looks at her hopefully.

Jade rolls her eyes at him and separates the paper, handing him the crossword. "You have to get your own coffee," she says.

Dad grunts quietly. He can't really speak before nine am. Jade grunts back and they both lower their heads – Jade, reading about a horrific murder in LA (looks like vampires to her), Dad to his crossword. After a few minutes Dad reluctantly stands and goes to the burbling coffee pot, shutting it off and pouring a cup for himself. Very nicely, he sets a cup down in front of Jade as well.

"Thanks," she says, attacking the sugar bowl beside it. Dad hums tiredly. He gets the milk out of the fridge for himself.

"What are your plans for today?" he asks her once he's sat down.

Jade chews on her bottom lip. "Dunno," she says. She takes pause to glower up at him briefly. "I guess you're going into the office," she says. Dad looks guilty, which means yes.

"Your – your brother and Sophia are going to the park today," Dad tells her. "Jeff is going to meet his new play group today."

Jade snorts. "Good luck with that," she says.

"Yes," says Dad dismally. Jeff's last play-group hadn't liked him very much. Sometimes it's weird to Jade how alike she and her brother are. Probably they got all of Dad's unlikable traits.

After that, she and Dad can't really think of much to say to each other, but Jade doesn't feel too bad, because it's the morning. Dad asks her what a nine letter word for prudent is.

"Sagacious," Jade mutters into her article, rolling her eyes. Poor Dad isn't even very good at his crosswords.

"Thank you," says Dad, penciling it in.

* * *

She waits until nine-thirty before she lets herself call Cat. The traitorous wench is heading out with Vega soon, though, she tells Jade, to help pick out a present for Vega's boyfriend. It's their two month anniversary next week. Jade rolls her eyes heavenward and asks the ghost of Vincent Price what sort of girl is stupid enough to buy a boy a present for staying with her for two months (she'd like to think that the soft breeze that filters in through her open window and sends the curtains fluttering is Price whispering back down to her, "Tori Vega is a girl that stupid").

Well, shit. Cat was her only chance, really. It's not like she's going to fall back into Beck's arms at the first chance of loneliness. It's not like she _could_. She really doesn't want to go to the park with Jeff and Sophia, though. Nothing against Sophia – okay, everything against Sophia, always – but she really doesn't feel like being around a pack of drooling eight year olds all day. And it looks like it's going to be really nice outside, so she just slides her sunglasses down low on her face, slinks out to her car, and starts driving.

Jade's car is sort of old and it's gray and brown and she'd saved up to get it for six months before she turned sixteen. When she'd come to live with Dad and Sophia she'd had no friends and nothing to do, so she'd spent a lot of time in the library, reading the books about computers that Dad had. She knows a lot about them. That's why she can make Cat four SplashFace designs to chose from in an hour before bed. Sometimes she designs websites for people, but she makes a lot of money fixing Dad's coworker's computers after they ruin them getting viruses from porn and search engines. People really need to stop using Google.

Anyway, she hasn't fixed any computers lately, and she sort of hasn't given Sophia any money for her car insurance for two months, so she really isn't supposed to be driving around, except to school. Not like she really cares, though. She drives for a while, enjoying the sun – unlike what people at school say, she is not actually a vampire. She likes the weather when it's nice out. She and Cat usually sunbathe out on the back deck. It's just that she doesn't like to get _tan_, so she doesn't do it. Sort of like sweating. That's gross too.

She sort of takes pause when she realizes she's meandered into Shapiro's neighborhood. She passes a diner that's near his house, and she parks there in the back of the lot for a few minutes, thinking. God, is she really going to lower herself so much as to try and get _Shapiro_ to hang out with her on the weekend?

Well, it's not like he ever has anything important to do, right? Beck is in Canada this weekend visiting his grandma anyway (his dad is from there, and over the summer she'd gone with them to visit his family for a week and wow she's really not going to start thinking about Stupidface again), so it's not like she has to worry about him being there. Not like anyone really goes to Shapiro's anyhow.

Fuck it. It's not like she can just drive herself around all day, anyway. She doesn't have much gas left. Jade sighs, slides her sunglasses back down on her face, puts her car back into drive.

Shapiro stares at her with his mouth open for, like, twelve whole seconds before the radio in his head kicks in and he actually invites her in. There's a nice new shiny red car in the driveway, and she guesses it's his.

"You got your car keys?" she demands, and Shapiro gawps at her some more. His sister, who she's met once or twice when Cat's demanded to come over, flutters about annoyingly in the background. "I'm going to teach you to drive … _birdbrain_," she adds nicely, because some families aren't as liberal with swearing as her own.

Shapiro is nervous and squeaky. "I uh – well. The thing is. I sort of have plans today. And tomorrow."

"Oh." Jade stares back at him, feeling really dumb now for just showing up to his house like a loser, and in her pajamas nonetheless. Sometimes she sort of forgets that Shapiro is actually a person and might, you know, have things to do that don't revolve around school. "I didn't think you'd be busy."

Sister Shapiro peers into the hallway again. "On the weekends Robbie goes to - "

"Why won't you eat your eggs!" Shapiro shrieks at her. Hmm. Where does Shapiro go on the weekends? Oh my god, does he have a secret girlfriend or something?

Wait a second. Whoa, West. This is _Robbie_, after all. Maybe he goes to the junkyard and, like, puts kittens in a freezer, or something.

Shapiro Sister makes an ugly upset face that makes Jade think of her little brother. She whines, "You put too much_ salt _in them."

How cute. Chef Shapiro. He makes an ugly face back at his sister and commands her into the kitchen. He asks Jade, "Did you eat?"

"Yeah," says Jade, who is actually pretty starving, "the thing is, I don't really eat breakfast."

Shapiro says something dorky and horrible about brain food. He waves her into the kitchen, too. Jade looks around, remembers she has nothing else to do and is really rather utterly fucked, and trudges off in the direction his sister went. Shapiro flutters behind her in a pleased way.

Sister Shapiro – what is her name? Janey? Jezebel? - beams at her in the kitchen, sitting down across from her at the table. Shapiro's entire house is sort of like him – bland and sterile. The whole kitchen is big and white and gray. Jade sinks a little in her chair and pushes her glasses down on her face.

Shapiro is moving happily around by the stove like he's Mrs. Butterworth. "Jade doesn't know about my secret lair that tunnels deep to Valhalla where I forge powerful weapons not known of here on this Earth," he says to his sister. He adds pointedly, "Which is what I do on most weekends."

Jade stares at him. She does, however, know that he is _utterly insane._

Sister Shapiro stares at him too for a moment before squeaking and grinning. "Okay!" she squeals. "Yeah! I've been briefed not to reveal the entry point even under the threat of water torture." She beams at Jade some more.

Jade feels the beginnings of a migraine coming on. "You guys are … really related," she mutters.

Shapiro hands her a glass of orange juice. He fries her an egg. Jade stabs at it consideringly while Shapiro hovers around awkwardly, musing.

"I really do need to learn to drive," he says.

"Don't worry about it if you're busy," Jade mutters. She watches her egg bleed out yellow onto the burnt toast.

Shapiro scrubs his hand through his horrible hair. He says, "I'll go with you if you eat your egg and toast."

Jade glowers at him, and he gives her his nervous face, which makes her sort of happy. "Do you know," she says, "that neither of those things are actually very beneficial to me."

Shapiro says, "Healthy minds uncover more facts you'll find."

She sort of wants to cry.

Shapiro doesn't do too badly driving – he is overwhelmingly nervous, worse than Beck had been, but he doesn't seem to think the world turns into a video game once you get into your car like Cat does, either. They wind around the blocks of his neighborhood for a bit before she cajoles him (that's her word – Shapiro would probably use one like 'threatens') onto the highway. Jade plays with his radio, setting it to a classic rock station she likes. Shapiro sinks down in his seat and keeps slowing down whenever there's a car passing him in the next lane.

"Don't worry about them," Jade commands, accidentally flicking some of her cigarette ash onto him. "Just stay in your lane. You got your mirrors. If someone else hits you it's their fault, and you're either dead or you get a shitload of insurance money."

For some reason, Shapiro doesn't look comforted by this at all!

He takes the time to regroup and use his inhaler while they're getting gas put in the car. Jade digs around in the glove box and console compartments, looking for anything cool (there's nothing), and Shapiro watches her warily, wheezing slightly, as he is wont to do.

Shapiro does a fairly good job of not killing them as Jade directs him into the city and then towards a shopping center. Shapiro looks terrified here. "Do you need to go to the mall?" he asks.

"No, idiot," Jade says, and directs him to the parking lot of Starbucks. Shapiro practically passes out.

"Jade!" he cries. "I can't fit in that parking space!"

"Yes you can!" Jade says, pretending to grab the wheel from him and enjoying the rather high-pitched cry he emits. "Okay, pull in now," she commands.

Shapiro still looks disheartened as he turns the steering wheel all the way to the right like she's told him. "You really want to give me a heart attack," he says dourly. "You actually want to murder me, Jade West!" He makes a scared noise, sort of what a dying bat would sound like, Jade thinks. "Aren't I going to hit that car next to me?!"

"No," says Jade. "Just pull in!"

Shapiro makes another upset noise, doing so. He eases his car into the parking spot, albeit haltingly. He looks a little disbelieving once he sets the car into park and turns off the engine. "See? Good," Jade tells him, once they've climbed out of the car and Shapiro is running around inspecting his rather perfect parking job.

Shapiro turns towards her, beaming like the sun. "Jade!" he cries. "I did it! I parked! Jade! We're at Starbucks!"

Jade feels another small piece of her brain die. "Thank you, Catherine Obvious," she says drolly. Shapiro just beams at her some more.

They head inside to Starbucks. Shapiro is so overjoyed at not murdering them by parking that he tells her he'll buy her whatever she wants. "You didn't eat very much breakfast," he says.

In line, waiting for their orders to come up, Jade makes fun of his shirt, which she hasn't bothered to notice until now. It's blue on one side and pink on the other. Shapiro smoothes it down. "My sister picked it out," he says defensively.

Jade snorts. "Yeah, I bet she did," she says, turning away from the counter to plan out where they're going to sit. It's still sort of early, only eleven, but Starbucks is pretty crowded, since it's, you know, Starbucks. She'd like to have a seat by the window. She -

Then she sees a flash of the brightest red hair in the universe and glowers hard as she realizes it's Cat and Andre sitting very close together in one of the small booths in the back of the store and looking rather happy to be alone together.

Interesting, and more interesting.

Also, WHAT ABOUT SHOPPING WITH VEGA? She wonders just what the hell Cat is doing out with Andre that she felt the need to lie to Jade about it. Doesn't she know that Jade finds out about _everything ever?_

Shapiro follows her gaze before she can stop him. "Oh! We should go say hi!" he says happily, blatantly oblivious to the fact that there's clearly no room for Robbie in Cat-and-Andre-land. He grabs up his organic tea and starts peppily walking in their direction. Still happy, he says, "You can pretend you're not with me if you want!"

Jade rolls her eyes heavenward once more and asks Vincent Price why everyone she knows is an idiot. Unfortunately, Vincent Price has no answer this time.

She follows after Shapiro and goes to sit down.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

Two weeks later, in mid-November, Shapiro actually passes his driver's test. He'd left school early to take it, and at around six o'clock, just as she'd been dreading, she sees her phone light up with his stupid face. Shapiro, when he isn't nervous over everything, has actually been known to never _shut the fuck up_.

"I did everything just like you said!" Shapiro squeals into the phone once she picks it up (why had she done that? Why had she picked up the phone? Why? _Why?_). "I didn't even hit the orange cones when I parallel parked!"

"Cool," Jade says absently. She's rebooting Dad's laptop, and it's a bitch trying to extract his lab spreadsheets. He has a lot of viruses. Stupid Jeff - she doesn't know why he'd tried to download The Sims on this, or why Dad had let him. As an afterthought, she adds, "Congrats. Anything else?"

"I guess not," Shapiro says amicably, utterly undeterred from being happy. "Say, what're you doing tonight?"

"Killing myself," Jade intones, furiously stabbing at the delete key.

"Oh," says Shapiro doubtfully. "That doesn't sound too fun."

"Obviously I'm not very good at it, as I'm still here."

Shapiro hems and haws. She can picture his dumb face all pressed up against the phone, pinched and frowning. "Well," he says, "you can call me later if you want to do something (Puke! She will never call him ever!). Do you know if Cat's busy? Oh, or are you hanging out with her? Hey, maybe I can take you guys to the mall! Or do you need to go to the hair salon? Or the - the _nail_ salon? Or any other type of salon? Females do that, right? I can take you to those places now. Since I, you know, am currently the proud owner of a California state dr - "

"Shapiro,_ please,_" Jade whines, switching the phone to her other ear and cradling it on her shoulder as she pulls Dad's laptop closer to her. "I know you missed like half the day, but do you really need to gab so much to make up for it?"

"I am not _gabbing!_" squawks Shapiro (Tori must be giving him lessons in being irritating). "I'm just trying to have a conversation with you, Jade West, my close friend - "

Jade growls.

"My close _acquaintance - _" Shapiro amends quickly -

Jade growls again -

" - my, um, far, far distant acquaintance - "

"Cat's busy," Jade interrupts him. "She's, ummm. She's."

Cat is actually out with Andre. They're in Earth Science together at school, and she guesses they're doing some sort of extra credit thing at the planetarium. She thinks that that's what Cat had said, at any rate. They're probably having loads of fun talking about how Pluto isn't a planet anymore, or drinking drinks out of hippo-shaped mugs they've bought at the gift shop. For some reason, though, she really doesn't want to let Shapiro know this.

"She's washing her hair!" she says brilliantly.

"Oh," says Shapiro, disappointed. "Well, I guess that color takes a lot of upkeep."

Jade takes a moment to pause in disbelief that he's actually bought that. "Yeah," she drawls. "It really does."

She doesn't really know what's going on with Cat and Andre. Cat says it's nothing, but Jade – well, Jade knows what flirting looks like, which is what Cat has been doing, and she knows what it looks like when someone flirts back, which is what Andre has been doing.

Cat could _tell_ her if she liked Andre, Jade thinks bitterly. What, does she think she'd be mad, or something? It's not like she would be jealous! It's not like she's completely devastated over Beck, lying idle in a puddle of her own drool and tears. She could handle it. She doesn't care who Cat has a crush on! Just because Shapiro is, like, hopelessly in love with her - !

Two weeks ago, when she and Shapiro had seen the two of them together at Starbucks, Jade had sort of known something was up. Coffee is a sacred thing, she told Cat later. You just don't go to get mochas with someone you don't like!

"Then what were you doing there with Robbie?" Cat had asked, very innocently.

Jade had thrown one of Jeff's Matchbox cars at her face. "Neither of us had mochas!" she shouted.

Anyway, at Starbucks, Shapiro had been his usual tiresome self, squishing down next to Cat gleefully and making conversation with her and Andre. Jade had sauntered after him slowly, glaring daggers at Cat, who'd tried to play dumb.

_SHOPPING WITH TORI?_ Jade's eyes had screamed as she settled down far too close to Andre in an attempt to upset the redhead.

Cat's eyes bugged out. _I REALLY AM GOING LATER! _they'd said.

Jade had slurped her extra-large iced coffee and played idly with the end of one of Andre's dreadlocks (he'd made an uncomfortable noise). _YOU'RE A DIRTY LYING LIAR-GANK!_ her eyes had said to Cat.

Cat had wilted briefly against Shapiro, who'd looked starstruck and choked on his tea. _JADE!_ her eyes squealed.

They'd continued on this way for about ten or twenty minutes, making idle table conversation but really communicating with their eyes. The boys, as they were wont to do, remained completely oblivious. Jade hadn't relented. For a final blow: _HOBKNOCKER._

Cat squeaked loudly into her mocha, and the whole table turned to stare at her. Harris had been in the middle of saying something to Shapiro about their Improvisation class, and you know, Jade just hadn't been in the mood to hear people badmouthing Sikowitz right then, okay? The man has a _process!_ "Come on Shapiro," she'd intoned, getting up. "You ready to parallel park?"

A few moments later, back in his car and leaving the parking lot, Shapiro wondered aloud if Jade was actually crazy. "Do you have a problem with Cat and Andre now?" he'd asked her.

"Why don't you tell me what you do on the weekends that's so important," Jade had sneered, rolling down her window to light another cigarette. The kid even had automatic window locks! How nice for him. Anyway, Shapiro had gone quiet and sunk down in his seat a little. Everyone has their secrets, she'd told him. Even Cat and even Andre.

Shapiro looked confused, but by then Jade had been over it, and she turned the radio up loudly. It was grunge hour on WPR, which always brought her much joy. "Did you know that once Kurt Cobain gave his sneakers away to a fan on the street?" she asked Shapiro.

Shapiro smiled. She guessed he was glad she wasn't going to harp on the Cat or Mystery Weekend thing. "No, I didn't," he'd said. He turned the radio down slightly, anticipating the story.

She'd talked about Kurt Cobain for a while, and taught the kid how to parallel park. They'd hung out the next day, too – Shapiro had _asked_ her to! – and it had been much of the same. It hadn't been too horrible, really. She hadn't even had to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes to get through it, and then Shapiro made her a fried peanut butter sandwich for lunch.

It was good, but she hadn't told him that.

After that, it had been Monday, and her furious anger at Cat had abated some. Cat had apologized, and she really had gone to meet Vega about an hour after that, and that really was all it was, right? Right. Right?

Yup. That was all it was.

Anyway, now – dear God, he is still talking. "Can you, like, call Beck or something?" she demands suddenly.

"Huh?" Shapiro squeaks a little, because she's commanded him to never say the name. "You – want me to call B – uh, _him?_"

"Aren't you supposed to call your _significant other_ with news like this?" Jade asks. "Now you can take him out to dinner."

Shapiro makes an offended noise. "He is not my - ! And I'm going to call him. I just wanted to tell you _first_." He sniffles fitfully, probably in indignation, but – well, it's Shapiro, so maybe he's getting a cold.

"Cool," Jade says once more. She glowers at the laptop screen.

"Um," says Shapiro. "So, you guys are - ? Are you guys speaking? Again? Do you - ?"

"Really busy here Shapiro!" she snaps, not really meaning to – for once, it's nothing against him. She had told Dad that she would have his files cleaned up by the time he gets home from work, and he's late anyway, but – well. There had been a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon on TV earlier, and she will always watch the episode where the cafeteria worker tries to poison the school. In all honesty, she prefers Angel, but beggars (or girls that only have the first four seasons illegally torrented) can't be choosers.

"Okay!" squeaks Shapiro. "Okay, well, I'll just call Beck, I guess. Actually, I should start dinner first. My sister says that we always eat dinner too late. She says that I need to - "

Jade sighs. "Robbie?" she says.

He pauses. "Yes?"

"No one cares."

"Oh, right," says Shapiro, not even sounding very hurt! "Well, I'll talk to you later."

"Please don't threaten me," Jade says severely, hanging up.

* * *

That next day her phone won't stop buzzing. Vega's found out about Shapiro's license – he's the last one to get it, aside from Vega, who just consistently fails her test every month – and she wants to throw a little party for him.

She _would_. The girl is just the biggest party slut, Jade thinks. She'll throw a party for anything. Genocide? Let's throw a party! Cat got her split ends trimmed off? Party city! Andre got a cheese steak instead of a burger for lunch? Heck, let's have a party!

There's no way she's going to Vega's.

Jade throws her phone on her bed. She makes herself a giant bowl of instant pudding, yells at her brother a bit, and settles in to watch a movie, ignoring the explosions of her phone going off. Oh, Haley Joel Osment, you are so sweet, and no one else has to know that, little darling. He's just like a bunny rabbit or something, and really, Jade loves bunny rabbits – they are so cute – and she doesn't care who knows it.

She does go to Vega's, though, of course – don't you know her life? Cat sends her 18 rapid texts and then Shapiro calls her, the weasel, and she really didn't mean to answer, it's just out of habit, you know, plus she might need him to take her to school on Monday so she needs to stay on his good side.

Not that he actually has a good side, you know. He has one side that is dorky, and the other side is even moreso.

"Fine," she growls, after Shapiro squawks and squeaks and bribes her with ice cream and cupcakes for approximately ten years. "Maybe I'll, like, make an appearance."

Shapiro babbles on until Jade nicely hangs up on him. She casts one last longing look towards the TV, midway through Secondhand Lions, then sighs. She gives her pudding to Jefferson in apology for yelling earlier.

"What did you put in it?" Jeff demands. Jade smirks at him very sweetly, knowing he will eat the whole bowl and then stress about it, and she gets in her car (it backfires dangerously) and drives to Vega's.

EW, WHAT IS BECK DOING HERE? Shapiro hadn't mentioned Beck. She sends a glower over towards both boys, who are standing by the couch. They look scared, and Shapiro hurries over to her.

"Thank you for coming," he says,. His hair looks like a wilted dandelion that's been coated in tar. Why is he wearing a_ tie? _Oh, god, he needs so much help.

Jade just snarls and reflexively reaches behind her to elbow Cat, who's come up behind her to try and put a party hat on her head.

"You keep her away from me," she tells Shapiro.

It's a wearisome night. She sits in the kitchen, perched obnoxiously on Catherine Obvious's counter, and watches her and Shapiro flutter about trying to make smoothies. Vega turns the blender on as Shapiro's across the room holding the lid and talking to Jade and then strawberry yogurt and bananas spatter all over them, but mostly on Shapiro and Vega. Tori emits a desolate cry that sounds a bit like a vulture's dying screech.

Jade feels happy. Vega hasn't even been annoying her too badly so far, and now she has yogurt in her hair.

In the living room, Beck is playing DDR with Shapiro's sister (_Jessica,_ not Janey, and she likes to mix her chocolate and coffee ice cream together too, Jade has learned). Vega's got Ginger Fox's first album playing, and Jade shoves her into Shapiro, making them dance, and uses the distraction to grab Shapiro's wallet out of his back pocket ("_Jade!_" he shrieks, scandalized).

"I need gas money," she says sweetly.

"You don't have to _molest_ me," he squeaks. Oh, she loves it when he squeaks. "You could just _ask_."

"But it's so fun to just_ take,_" she responds, then glowers at Vega, who's watching them and smiling like they're all _friends_ or something.

Across the room, Cat and Andre are dancing too. Jade watches them for a minute, listening to Cat's giggles. When she looks up, Beck's watching them, too. He looks over at her, raises an eyebrow. She raises one back.

Interesting.

* * *

"Hey."

The familiar voice makes her grimace into her locker. She stares forlornly into the depths of it for a moment, composing herself, before she swings the door shut. She turns to face Beck.

"Hello," she says. That's brisk and composed, right?

Beck smiles warily. "What's up?" he asks her.

She feels the strong need to channel Shapiro, and answers, "The sky."

Beck's smile stays politely on his face. He asks, "Can we talk?"

The old Jade would have snarled, "_We are talking._" The new Jade who has formed over the past two months, though – the Jade who doesn't have a boyfriend and has gone out to eat last night with Cat and Vega and not dumped any salad over anyone's head, the Jade who had actually just spent this past morning sitting in the library listening to Shapiro trigger his inhaler and intensely read her three different articles on lymphoma – bites her lips very hard, counts only to three, and says: "Yeah, sure."

Beck actually looks surprised, like it's so wildly shocking that she's being civil.

"Okay," he says slowly, and leans to rest against the locker beside her – not a leering lean any longer, but just a regular one. "Um," he says. "I want to – well, first, I want to say I'm sorry for shoving you. I shouldn't have done that."

"That's okay," she says. She doesn't make mention of the fact that she has shoved him first. She also doesn't apologize for slapping him, because she isn't very sorry.

Beck nods a little, looking sort of sad and uncomfortable. "So … we're okay?"

No, they're not okay. They will never be okay. Why would he ever think they would be okay? But she just nods back a little herself, probably also looking sad and uncomfortable, and says, "Yeah."

"Cool." Beck smiles again, and it's a little truer this time, that real smile that she can sometimes pull from him, even still, and it does make her throat ache a bit dully. "Also," he says, "um. My dad says that you have some of his CDs? He wants Matchbox 20 back."

"Oh," says Jade in a great depression. Drat. She'd been hoping he forgot.

"Yeah," Beck says, and smiles some more in a little commiseration. "Just because it's the first one, he says."

"Yeah," Jade says too. That's their best one – the only good one, really. She likes that old music video they have, with the camel. Beck, like, isn't _going away_ or anything, and seems pretty content stagnated against the locker, so she observantly tells him, "Well, I don't have it _here._"

"Oh," Beck says dumbly. "Um, yeah."

She plays with the strap of her messenger bag a bit irritatedly. "I'll just – I'll just give it to Shapiro later, like today, and he can give it to you, okay? And whatever else I find."

Beck nods. "Yeah, that's fine," he says. He hesitates. "It's nice," he says, and Jade looks at him expectantly, "um, that you're becoming close with Robbie."

Oh, God in heaven, Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorhees, help her! "We are not close," she hisses resentfully.

Beck smiles like he knows everything in the world! "Yeah," he says, "that's what he says too."

Jade scowls. "We're just working on a project together."

"That's what he says too," Beck says again. "But didn't he, like, take your brother to the comic store on Tuesday?"

"So what?" Jade snaps. "_I_ wasn't going to take him. I was plucking my eyebrows."

Beck looks a little weirded out. "Um, yeah," he says. "That's what he said, too. We both think they look nice."

Fantastic, Beck and Shapiro just probably sit around at restaurants holding hands and _talk_ about her. Life is so horrible. Anyway, maybe Beck can help her out. She really needs to – like, she guesses she needs to, you know, alert Shapiro to the fact that Cat is – whatever it is she's doing, with Andre, and soon, before he realizes it himself, or walks in on them at the planetarium or something. She doesn't know … well, she isn't exactly the world's most tactful person, she probably shouldn't be the one to tell him.

So: "Great," she says. "Actually, yeah, I wanted to talk to you about Shapiro."

"Oh?" says Beck doubtfully. God, she hates it when he says "oh." Then he says, "Yeah, me too. I haven't seen him much lately - " here he gives her a pointed look, like it's her fault that she and Shapiro had a project together and she needs to see him at least four days of the week outside of school! - "but uh. I saw Andre yesterday, with Cat? And do you think - "

Oh, thank Jesus, someone else knows! "Yeah," she interrupts. "I think, yeah."

"Oh," Beck says again, looking pensive. "Well, I just – I mean, it's their business, you know, right?"

"_No,_" says Jade. Anything that is Cat's business is her business.

Beck grins briefly for whatever reason, then continues: "Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know. Do you know if he still likes her? I mean, that is, Robbie - "

"Did someone say my name?" Shapiro asks, popping up from absolutely nowhere like he's fucking Beetlejuice or something (he is actually wearing black-and-white stripes, but not a whole jumpsuit, unfortunately).

"Ahm," say Jade and Beck eloquently.

Shapiro smiles around at them obliviously, clearly pleased to no end that they appear to be holding a civil conversation. "Hey Jade," he says, "I have a joke I want to tell you."

"Help me," Jade intone up to the ceiling, asking Vincent Price for lightening bolts, but the man does not comply. Beck looks confused. Shapiro doesn't, because she's told him that sometimes she needs to ask Vincent Price for strength to get through the day. He told her that sometimes he has strange dreams about Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. She doesn't blame him. Melissa Gilbert was pretty hot in the mid eighties.

"It's a _pro-feminist_ joke," Shapiro insists.

"Rob," Beck says, "Jade and I, we're sort of, talking about something right n-"

"No we aren't," Jade says loudly, turning away from him. She crosses her arms and inspects Shapiro critically. "All right, tell your joke."

Shapiro looks pleased some more. He says, "It is actually a series of seven. Numbers four and six mention Courtney Love! I wrote them down."

He starts digging around in his jeans. Beck, who does not appreciate the musical genius of a misunderstood woman, looks disheartened. "I'll just talk to you guys later, I guess," he says. He claps Shapiro on the back, starts to reach out to Jade, then changes his mind. "Try and remember my dad's CD," he says.

"Yeah," Jade grunts.

"See you," Shapiro says absently.

Beck leaves.

* * *

One day a little over a week into December, they're all in the library again after school – _they all_ being her, Cat, and Robbie, of course. Shapiro has his PearBook with him and is slowly starting to type their script from Jade's notebook pages. Jade is scowling hard at her Geometry study guide. They have midterms in two weeks, and Shapiro won't fill out the guide for her.

"You know this stuff!" he'd squawked a few minutes ago, gesticulating too much and accidentally hitting at his laptop screen. Jade considered, then tried out a Cat-like pout on him.

Shapiro had remained unwavering. "You're smarter than that," he said. "Find the area!" He'd handed her a mechanical pencil. She'd stopped pouting and commenced scowling.

Cat's sitting beside her now, across from Shapiro, with one headphone bud in her ear and the other dangling alongside the desk, humming along to some of her stupid Cat music. "I don't want to sing and have Robbie make fun of me again," she sing-songs pointedly, and Shapiro looks guilty. He'd really enjoyed Cat's misquoted rendition of 'Tiny Dancer' the other week (Cat seems to think the song is about Tony Danza). He'd laughed and choked and spit out his water. He'd even cried a little, he'd liked it so much. Cat hadn't been so amused.

"I won't tease you, Cat," he says nicely. "You can sing if you want."

Cat gives him a tiny sweet smile, which irritates Jade very much for some reason. "No she can't!" she says nastily. "We're in the library!"

She stabs at her study guide with her pen.

Cat and Shapiro pout a little bit. Shapiro says, "So are we ever going to see that movie, guys?"

Jade looks at her paper in interest. Oh god, the circumference of this square! It is so fascinating! It is a beautiful square! She's only just realized her deep, unbridled love for Geometry.

Cat asks, "What movie?"

"Ginger Fox!" Shapiro waves his arms a little and hits at his screen again, then squeaks, wiping it off. "You said you really wanted to see it."

"Oh," says Cat, and falls silent. "Well," she starts. "I sort of - "

"Cat and I went to see it without you," Jade interrupts, because for some reason she just really doesn't want to see Shapiro's face if he finds out Cat had forgotten them and went to see it with Andre. She just – it – he – well, she just doesn't want to see it, all right? "Sorry."

"Oh," Shapiro says in a great depression, but a better depression than knowing it's with Andre. He shifts a little, hunching his shoulders.

She needs to stop here - has she mentioned what he is wearing and how he looks today? He is an utter monstrosity. He is the stuffing of horror novels. His t shirt is too small, neon green, and rumpled slightly. Over it, he is wearing a brightly (read: hideously) checkered turquoise and green button-up. The green of the button-up does not match that of the infant-sized t shirt. A large ink stain (Cat's fault and pen, but still lends no points for Shapiro) covers one elbow of it. Three of his fingernails are colored in with purple magic marker (again, Cat's fault and pen, but still lending Shapiro no points). He is wearing _Adidas._ His hair, extra fluffy today due to the rain, flutters gently above his head like a sea amoeba drifting along its ocean bed.

He hurts her, really.

Cat furrows her brow at Jade. "Huh?" she says. "Jade, what are you - "

"Jesus Cat shut up we're in the fucking library!" Jade hisses, and then frantically digs around in her bookbag and pulls out a pack of Bibble, which is Cat's current favorite candy. "Looky what I have-y," she says severely, and Cat's eyes widen with want.

"Gimme!" she squeals in reverence, reaching out her hand, but Jade pushes her chair back quickly, keeping Cat at bay.

"Good girls are quiet and eat their Bibble neatly and silently," she says. "Will you do that?"

Cat nods rapidly, still wide-eyed. Jade glowers for another moment before handing the package over. Cat squeaks a tiny bit, but keeps true to it, remaining mostly silent as she opens up the candy and starts chewing. She goes back to her book, pleased.

Shapiro stares at them both, dumb mouth open a little. His lips are very pink. She wonders if he's stolen his sister's Chapstick again (he likes cherry). "You," he says, frowning from Jade to Cat. "How did you - ? Did you just - " He frowns some more. "You just, you bribed her with candy!"

"Uh duh," Jade says in agreement. Geometry has now lost its flair, and she commences glowering at the sheet.

Shapiro pouts exaggeratedly, making Cat emit a soft giggle. "Why does _Cat_ get candy?" he demands. "Why does _Cat_ get a reward for being quiet?" He pokes at Jade's purse. "Why don't I get anything? Jade? Why don't I get treats?"

Oh dear god, he's trying to be _cute_ or something. She takes pause to ask Vincent Price's ghost why she puts up with all of it (_because you are masochistic_, the ghost gently reminds her). Well, at least she's distracted them both from the subject of Cat and Andre's possible love affair. "You want me to feed you some Bibble so you can get a nice rash?" Jade growls.

"No," says Shapiro, looking distressed now. "But I can eat other things, you know. I want treats! You said I am basically a pet anyway. Why can't I get treats?"

"You aren't like a _good _pet," she says. "You aren't anything cool. You're like a, a hamster or something."

Shapiro looks more upset. "I _like_ hamsters," he mutters. "I'd love to have a hamster."

"I like hamsters too," Cat says quietly around a frothing mouthful of candy.

"Cat likes hamsters too!" says Robbie.

Clearly, their fate is written in the stars.

"Hrrm," grunts Jade. She doesn't think there are any treats in the world that would shut Shapiro up.

Shapiro frowns down at the notebook he's transcribing from. "What's this word?" he asks, pushing it towards her so she can inspect her writing. "Thorough?"

"It says _blue_," Jade says witheringly.

"Oh," Shapiro says, mollified, and commences typing.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

Her week goes by, and, God, how is it nearly Christmas already? She hasn't done a single thing this year! She hasn't even been going to Sikowitz's play groups, really, because Beck has been in them. She had acted in the one for September, but only since she had already had a part in it before The Incident occurred.

Both incidents. The break up and then the, you know, public assault.

She doesn't need to think of those things.

Cat had tried to make her join his play for December, but Jade had thought it was sort of stupid, plus honestly her project with Robbie takes up way too much of her time. The Sun Dog isn't exactly short, you know! And, god, when they start to film, it will be even worse.

Cat had pouted. "You're always with Robbie!" she'd whined.

Gross.

"Gross," said Jade, thinking about how she and Jeff had been at his house to eat not-Thanksgiving dinner because they both had weird families, "I am not."

The sad fact is – she does not like to acknowledge this fact – that while, no, she isn't with Robbie_ all the time_, she has seen, you know, quite a bit of him. She's been making sure not to ignore Cat, you know, but they do have that stupid project together. And it's sort of – Shapiro is hopeless, you know, but he's not really an _asshole_ or anything, sometimes he can be sort of funny, and Jeff likes him. Shapiro actually sort of calms her brother down, unlike Cat, who just exacerbates his ADHD with her craziness, and that's nice, because she doesn't have to go chasing after them all the time worried that they'll drink ammonia from under the sink or something. Also – they don't go to his house as often as Shapiro comes to hers, but when they are there, he feeds her, so she does have to give him points for that.

Anyway, they've actually finished their screenplay now, a little early - it isn't due until after winter break, when they'll come back in January. Shapiro had bought special paper to print it all out on at the beginning of the week.

It's Wednesday now, just after second period, and she's wasting time breaking into Robbie's locker. She still has his History notes that he's let her borrow on Monday, and she wants to give those back, but mostly she wants to meddle. His locker smells sort of weird. She pokes at a little Tupperware container that's filled with some sort of rice, and – ew, dear god, why does he have a picture of Ben Franklin taped up? Studiously, she removes it. Thank God she's come prepared to break into Dork Bait's locker.

"Hello," Robbie says a moment later, coming up beside her and not looking too confused or upset at the fact that Jade's got his locker open. "What, uh – what're you doing? Exactly?"

"Trying to make you a little bit cooler," Jade grunts, and takes the gum out of her mouth to secure the little Nirvana poster she's putting up.

Shapiro looks vaguely mortified at Jade using something that had just been in her mouth as locker adhesive. Oh, her bad, he sort of has this thing about germs, she guesses - he's always crying that he has a delicate immune system. She braces herself for some squawking and inhaler-triggering, but then he just demands, "Jade, I hope that gum is sugarless. Did you know that the leading source of cavities - "

"You don't say," Jade drawls, smoothing the poster out carefully. Kurt Cobain is in the foreground, as he should always be, with the drummer and bass player beside him. It's not really a poster – just a picture she'd found in one of her magazine subscriptions. Shapiro likes them too, sort of, or he doesn't cry when she plays them in his car (he says Alice in Chains is just too sad for him, what a weirdo), and he needs some culture in his life. Plus, Kurt just looks so cute in his picture. Jade sighs dreamily.

Robbie furrows his brow. "Are you sighing over dead rock stars again?" he asks.

"So what?" Jade says. She takes out her red Sharpie and draws a little heart over Kurt's face. "He is the last good one, and Krist is a Senator. The last true rock star." She sighs again.

Robbie looks scandalized and sad over the heart. "Well, now it looks like _I _sigh over Kurt Cobain," he says, perturbed. "Why don't you listen to – um, that drummer, doesn't he have a band? Don't you like them? He's a rock star, right? Not a Senator?"

Jade makes a horrible face and jabs at him with her marker. "Jade!" he squeals, leaping back – oops, the cap's still off.

"I hate Dave Grohl," she says sternly. "Don't you remember that?"

Shapiro looks very distressed for some reason. "I guess I forgot," he says mournfully.

Jade glowers. She continues: "I hate the Foo Fighters. Who likes the Foo Fighters? Dave Grohl is like – he looks like a fucking monkey or something! He looks like an ape! A fucking ape, Shapiro!"

Robbie smiles a bit. "So no heart on his face?"

"No way!" She thinks about it. "They do have one good song, though. Beck and I had sex to that song before."

Shapiro turns the color of a rotten eggplant, which is her favorite color that he can turn. "That's um, that is so lovely," he says, covering his face. "I'm just – so glad you shared that with me - " Jade smiles, opens her mouth - "and no, I don't want to know what song."

Jade pouts.

"Hey guys," Andre says, coming up and clapping Robbie on the back and making Jade feel utterly scandalized herself for some reason. He looks around at them – Jade's halfway in Robbie's locker and shaking his container of rice around now, and Shapiro's just watching her. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Robbie says mildly. "Just Jade ruining my life as usual." His gaze goes once more to the Nirvana poster, hovering dourly on Kurt's face, surrounded by red marker. Jade smiles very big.

Andre's eyes follow Robbie's to the picture, and he makes a little miffed face, looking surprised. "Oh, you ah … really like Kurt Cobain, huh Rob? That's cool."

"I did not draw the heart!" Shapiro cries, to no avail, because no one cares.

"Say," Andre says, of course he freaking does say, "have either of you guys seen Cat?"

Jade snarls quietly. Andre doesn't notice, but Shapiro sends her a surprised little glance. "Uh, I think she's still in her writing class," he says. "Do you know the room number?"

"Oh, yeah," Andre says. "Thanks, man. I couldn't remember what class she had now. Thanks."

Ugh!

He can't even remember what classes she has! If you're going to flirt with someone, you should know their entire schedule!

Men! They disgust her!

Furiously she scribbles on Dave Grohl's face as Andre walks off. She scribbles so hard that her pen tears through the paper, and she takes pause, waiting for Shapiro to start screaming that she'd just defaced school property – oh Moses, not just that, but _his_ school property! - but when she turns, he's just still watching her, both his dumb eyebrows raised speculatively.

"I just, I really hate Dave Grohl," she grunts, then throws her pen down the hall, shoulders her messenger bag, and stomps off to History.

* * *

At lunch Shapiro sits beside her – it's not like it was by choice, it's just that Beck is sitting with them again today for some stupid reason, so everyone had had to move over a spot – nattering on about … well, shit, she isn't actually listening to him.

"Shapiro," she interrupts him.

Robbie gives her a dour glance, and she raises an eyebrow at him expectantly. "No!" he says.

"No?" she responds. "Excuse you?"

"No!" Robbie squawks (ah, there it is), "I will not say, _what Jade_, because you will say _no one cares,_ and you know what, you _should _care about gingivitis! Really! Three out of four teenagers don't even recognize - "

Jade sighs. She starts digging around in her backpack.

Last night, Tuesday, was grocery night at their house, and it was Dad's turn to drive across town to Whole Foods and pick them up, and he'd looked very depressed, so she'd gone with him. Jeff has some allergies – he's not a freak of nature like Robbie, but still – so they have to go to the health store that's like twenty miles away, and Dad hates driving on the highway.

As they'd been turning into the shopping plaza, Jade's phone had lit up. She'd taken it out of her purse and read the text that she had just received. "Sophia says you forgot the shopping list."

Dad looked badly upset! Shocking! "I did not!" he says.

"She says you left it on the counter."

Dad looked pensive! Thrills and chills! What will happen next? Tune in next week for The Faces of My Dad.

"I most certainly did not," Dad said. "She placed it in my shirt pocket. She put the button flap down. You watched her do it."

"Yeah," said Jade. Then Sophia had kissed Dad, right in the kitchen! Gross! "Gross!" Jeff had screamed, so Jade didn't have to.

"Then I - " Dad paused. "Well, then I wanted to look at the list, so I took it out of my shirt pocket. I inspected the list. Doesn't eight pounds of chicken seem a lot, Jade? For only a week? Then I … "

He trailed off in a great sadness.

Sweetly, Jade had asked, "Put the list down on the counter?"

"Drat," said Dad in distress.

Jade had laughed, because she couldn't help herself, and Dad looked more upset. "She can just text you the important things," she said, trying to make him look less like the world was ending. When Dad got worked up, he got sweaty, and there was really nothing worse than a sweaty Dad under the fluorescent lights of Whole Foods. Nicely, she even offered to push the cart, and happily careened away through the store, as Dad wandered along after her, sadly inspecting cereals and looking lost.

Jade had paused to look about in the expansive gluten-free aisle. There are whole-wheat cookies, with a little brown bespectacled creature wearing a yellow sweater. Say, is that what Cat was for Halloween? The box just said Arthur, though, which doesn't help her. She passed it by with a small glare. "Hey Dad," she said. "Can I buy these corn puff chips?"

Dad, she guessed, was still distressed over the eight pounds of chicken, or had it only been five? "Whatever you want, dear," he said.

Jade had hummed happily, sweeping them into the cart. She also selected a pack of rice cakes. Robbie could eat this stuff, right? She wondered if she could train him to silence, too, as she'd worked on Cat over the years. That would be nice. And he always had tons of ice cream at his house, which she strongly thought he bought just for her, as milk gives him a rash. He is such a nerd! He doesn't need to _stock up _for her. She won't kill him if there's no food in front of her!

Anyway – last night had been good. It's a stupid thing to think of, grocery shopping, but she never really gets to hang out with Dad anymore – had she ever, really? – and she'd just felt – she doesn't know. A little young and a little happy, grocery shopping with her father, which she'd never done as a child because she hadn't thought she'd had one. Dad let her buy four different kinds of cereal, and some ice pops.

Later, Sophia screamed at them for forgetting the milk and buying too much junk food. She ruins everything.

Anyway, she doesn't want to think of her stupid stepmother now. She finds the rice cake package at the bottom of her purse, waits until Shapiro is watching her warily, and pulls it out slowly, with great flourish. "Look what I have," she singsongs.

Shapiro instantly perks up and looks at it intensely, just like a cute dog would! "For me?" he says excitedly, which is what a cute dog would say if it could talk.

"Yes," she says sweetly, "if you are good and quiet and stop talking about teeth."

Robbie wavers, looking at the rice cake with great longing. It is apple cinnamon flavored. He bites his lip. He says, "Don't think I don't know what you're doing."

Jade waves the rice cake enticingly. "Do you care?"

"No," Shapiro says finally, reaching out, and she lets him take it. He makes a happy sound and starts neatly unwrapping it, going blissfully quiet. She notes that Beck and Vega are both watching them with interest (Cat and Andre are not watching them. They are busy talking and giggling disgustingly).

"What?" Jade snarls. "Mind your business!"

Shapiro opens her binder and starts correcting her math equations for her. Slightly happy, Jade turns back to her pizza.

Later, in her Geometry class, Jade opens up her binder and snorts. Shapiro had been rooting through her backpack during Lit Media, and she hadn't really thought anything of it, since he always likes her pens more.

Neatly placed inside of her math notebook is another picture of Nirvana, a black-and-white printout, probably from the library. It's the same picture she's gotten from her magazine article. Kurt is standing and looking cool with Dave and Krist hovering over his shoulder. Shapiro's circled Dave's face in red pen, and written above it, "Planet of the Apes sneaking up in the background."

He is such an idiot! She looks at the picture some more before tucking it back into her messenger bag. It'll look good in her locker.

If you asked her about it later, though, she'd deny even smiling.

* * *

Even later than that, of course, Cat just ruins her whole entire life. Her hair is going to fall out with stress! She didn't do anything to deserve this!

How it goes is: after school, Cat's at her house, being happier and more hyper than usual. She messes up Sophia's artfully arranged fruit bowl as they're standing in the kitchen, making apples and oranges sing.

"God, what are you doing?" Jade snarls, snatching the orange back from her. Sophia will start screaming if she sees Cat touching anything in the kitchen! Cat knows this by now. "What's the matter with you?"

"Noooo-thing," Cat singsongs.

Jade glares doubtfully.

Cat beams back at her. She cries, "Andre kissed me!"

Good lord in heaven! He _kissed_ her? What's that supposed to mean?!

"What do you mean he kissed you?" Jade demands, swiftly moving probably too close to Cat. "Why? Where did he kiss you? Who saw?" Did _Shapiro_ see?

Cat just giggles at the invasion of personal space. Of course she does. She reaches out and pokes Jade on the mouth – ew! Who the fuck knows where Cat's hands have been! Jesus! "He kissed me there!" she cries.

"You idiot!" Jade cries back, batting the girl's hands away roughly. "I got that. I mean, what, at school?"

"Yup!" trills Cat.

"Where?"

"On the _mouth_ - "

"Yes, Cat, he kissed you on the mouth! Christ! _Where_ at school?"

"Oh!" says Cat, eyes lighting up, God help her. "Under the mistletoe! By Sikowitz's classroom!"

Dear lord and Vincent Price, by Sikowitz's classroom! That means probably everyone has seen – the whole student body, the teachers, janitors, hell, probably some of the preschoolers across the street, helicopters flying by. President Obama is probably putting a screencap of it on the Internet right now. "Great," says Jade.

Cat hums happily. "If we aren't doing anything this weekend – I might go to his grandmother's house for dinner. She's going to make tacos!"

"You're going to his house for dinner?" Jade muses absently. "What is it, like, a date?"

Cat makes a silly face at her. "No, not a date," she says, "not really. I don't think his grandmother likes me very much." She pauses, thinking, playing a bit with her long ponytail. "Do you think I should ask him on a date?"

"No," Jade says immediately. "Definitely not. Nah. What happened to, _boys are stupid_?" A bit inanely, she adds, "What about Robbie?"

"What _about _Robbie?" Cat repeats, looking puzzled. She looks down at her PearPhone, checking the time. "Oh, do you have to go meet him or something?"

"No, I mean - " Jade falls silent, giving up. "No, I don't have to meet him."

She feels overwhelmingly irritated at Cat for - for being so dense. The feeling makes her feel rather small and helpless, and this, you know, makes her feel _very angry_.

She can't even – she can't anything! She can't_ say_ anything. She knows it's not really Cat's problem if Shapiro is in love with her, but she could – take some _care_, or something. It's a bit rich, the thought, coming from her, but she can't help thinking it. Shapiro goes about squawking all the time that he doesn't love Cat anymore, but anyone can see – well, she should _see_.

It's not like she blames Cat for not wanting to date Robbie, honestly. She doesn't think Shapiro would know what to do with a real live girl if he got one. But Cat should take note of the way that he acts towards her – he always listens raptly to her idiotic stories, which is more than Jade can say for herself, for anyone, and at lunch, he'll just be reading her essays for her, correcting her spelling, and he always puts her notebooks back in her binder for her, because he knows she'll forget and leave them at the table.

She knows that Cat had turned him down last year, and her reasoning had been that he is her friend, and she doesn't want to date her friends. That had been rather tactful, her way of letting him down, but doesn't she remember doing that? And what the hell is Andre, if not her friend? Cat can't help who she likes, but – well, there's a school full of boys, and - and you're supposed to be mindful of your friends! Jade hadn't dated Mark, had she, even though that had been stupid middle school stuff and a thousand years ago. And after she'd turned him down, he'd just been nasty, and Cat had turned Robbie down, and he still dotes on her and buys her chocolate bars. He tries very, very hard to be sweet to her, and she doesn't see it, how can she not see it?

"Cat," she demands, "do you – do you like Andre?"

Cat is still twirling her hair and pissing her off. "Of course I like Andre!" she says. "I like lots of people!"

There is no God. There is no God that can help her. Jade restrains herself from throttling the girl. "I mean - " she grits out. "You _like_ him? Like, you want to_ date _him?"

"Oh," says Cat. "Well, I don't know. I didn't think so, but we've been hanging out so much lately … "

Jade cries, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing!" squeals Cat. "Just, I don't know, he's really nice! Don't you think he's nice?"

"There are lots of nice people," Jade tells her. Pointedly, she adds, "Don't you think Shapiro is nice?"

"Of course I do!" says Cat. "But, you know, Robbie isn't Andre."

Jade closes her eyes in pain. "Wait, what?" she says. "Robbie isn't Andre? God, for years, I've been thinking they were the same person."

Cat giggles. "You're so silly!" she tells Jade.

"Yeah," says Jade dismally. "I know."

She doesn't really know what else to say. Despite what she has said to Beck – well, everything that Cat does isn't_ actually _her business. She can't really tell Cat not to date Andre because her stupid Lit Media partner likes her, can she?

Maybe, she hopes, Shapiro won't care. Or maybe they won't date at all. Or maybe he won't notice! He is sort of oblivious, you know! She grabs Cat and shakes her.

"Show some discretion!" she shrieks.

Cat looks scared. "Um, okay?" she squeaks. "I will? Why're you acting so weird?"

She is not acting weird! She's acting perfectly normal! She's -

"I'm not_ acting weird!_" Jade hisses, still shaking Cat. "Just – you can't – if you tell - "

Then Sophia walks in and stares at the two girls clutching each other and standing very close together.

"Oh," she says. "Is Cat staying for dinner?"

Jade snarls very much as Cat looks happy. "No," she says, "no she isn't."

Cat pouts. Sophia floats blithely over to the refrigerator. "I think I'll make a stew." Pointedly, she says, "Unfortunately - " God, her accent is so bad, does she _try_ to sound indeterminable? - "I don't think we have enough chicken. Cat, if you want - " she pauses. She says, "Who put these bananas in the fridge?"

"I did," Jade says, finally releasing her hold on Cat.

Sophia says, "Honey, you can't put bananas in the fridge."

Jade feels very attacked. "What do you mean, you can't put them in the fridge?" she hollers. "Do you have some sort of banana dictatorship going on? Why can't you put them in the fridge?"

Sophia looks slightly taken aback. "Honey - "

"I'm not your _honey!_" Jade spits.

Now Sophia looks more taken aback, and a bit offended. "Don't use that tone with me, please," she says in a clipped tone. Cat watches with interest. "They'll spoil if you leave them in the fridge. Don't you have any practical life skills?"

_LIFE SKILLS?_

"I have more life skills than you!" Jade hollers. Why the fuck is Sophia yelling at her about bananas in front of Cat? She hates her life so much.

Sophia leans on the fridge darkly, holding the banana cluster (they do look sort of spotty). "I doubt that very much," she says. "Stop hollering, please."

"I'm not hollering!" Jade hollers.

"You're hollering a little bit," Cat tells her in a soft voice.

Jade snarls at her. "Oh, leave me alone," she says. She glowers at Sophia, too. "You leave me alone too!"

"Oh, you leave _me_ alone!" Sophia spits, and storms out of the kitchen, probably to once more tell her father and brother how horrible she is. Life skills! She'll show her life skills! She glares at the doorway that her stepmother's disappeared through, fuming very much.

"So," says Cat slowly, the aftermath of a fight between Jade and Sophia not being a very new thing, "do you want to come over?"

"No!" Jade hollers, because she really doesn't think she can deal with Cat squeaking over Andre for another ten years, plus dinner at Cat's house always sucks, "I do not want to come over! Go home!"

Cat looks upset for a moment, then brightens. "Okay," she says. "I have to call Andre anyway. So, do you want to do something this weekend or not? Because if not - "

"Oh I don't care," spits Jade. "Go out with Andre if that's what you really want."

Cat twists her face up a little. "Well, okay," she says. "I guess I will."

"Great!" Jade screams. "Awesome! Fantastic!"

Cat looks taken aback. Cat goes home.

Jade slams some things about the kitchen for a few moments to make herself feel better. She snatches her car keys up off the table and starts to storm outside. Coffee! She needs coffee! She needs so much coffee. Overpriced coffee.

Sophia is reading out beside the foyer, and she looks up as Jade begins to sweep past her. "I hope you don't think you're going out," she says.

Jade pauses. Why had she paused? She should have just stormed past. "Why not?" she demands, crossing her arms without meaning to.

Sophia crosses her arms too. "You haven't paid your car insurance since September," she says. "They dropped us all from the plan! I had to find a new one. You need to be more responsible."

Jade glowers at her. "I am responsible!" she says. Sophia just looks at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Well," she says, "you can be responsible without insurance, then. You'll have to find your own. I was talking to your father - "

"Oh I bet you were!" Jade snaps. Sophia can make Dad do anything. She's making Jade feel like a little kid, and Jade hates that. She's the only person her age that she knows – of all the kids in school – that has to pay for her own car insurance. She can't believe Sophia's dropped her from the plan! Everyone else's parents just puts them on their bill and pays for it. Dad and Sophia (Sophia, mostly Sophia) have always made her pay her own way, which isn't fair. It's because of Hollywood Arts, it's her bargain for being at Hollywood Arts, and Dad had spent all that money for her stupid play that no one had seen -

Sophia glares very much. "You aren't going anywhere," she says.

"It's _my car,_" Jade sneers.

"Yes," says Sophia, "your car, and your unpaid speeding ticket, and your two unpaid parking tickets. If you get pulled over without insurance, they'll tow it." She glares some more! "I should just let you sit at the police station."

Jade throws her keys. "I hate you!" she says, and flees upstairs. She flings herself onto her bed in a great fury before dismally realizing she hasn't locked her door, but she's too distressed to raise her head from her pillow and lock it. She waits for the heavy sound of Sophia's feet on the staircase and for her to burst in and scream at her some more, but she never hears them.

No one ever cares enough to yell at her some more.

Life sucks.

She lays on her bed for a while, counting the swirls on the ceiling and feeling irritated, feeling a little trapped in her house. When her phone goes off ringing, she snarls and almost doesn't answer it, but eventually she picks up, expecting to see Cat's stupid face.

It's not Cat, though. It's Shapiro. She takes a moment to despair the fact that he now sees fit to call her so frequently without fearing for his life. Jade glowers at the phone for a moment, debates, and answers on the last ring.

"What do you want?" she demands.

"Uh," says Robbie, already sounding alarmed, which makes her feel only marginally better. "Uh." He pauses. "Are you okay?"

"No I'm not okay!" Jade roars. "My stepmom is a monster! I can't drive! Cat is an idiot! I hate everything! Why the fuck can't you put bananas in the fridge?"

There's a short pause as Shapiro takes the time to be overwhelmed at her. "Well," he says slowly. "I'm sorry? And I don't – I don't know about the bananas. Do you want me to look it up?"

"Yes," Jade says in a great sadness.

"Okay! Let me get my PearPad," says Shapiro, always thrilled to use his PearPad. "Why can't you drive?"

With increasing sorrow, Jade tells him about the insurance debacle.

"Oh Jade," Shapiro says in distress. "Where did you get a parking ticket?"

Jade snarls.

"It sounds like you need ice cream," Shapiro says, quickly switching tactics. "Would you like ice cream? Do you want me to pick you up for ice cream? Also, you can so put bananas in the fridge."

**AN: I don't know how I feel about this. I am trying to progress the time-frame a bit quickly to get to the good stuff, so I hope the little Robbie/Jade snippets are portraying the slow change in their relationship (loathing to grudging friendship) well enough.**

**Cenobite, I adore Yourself or Someone Like You! One of the few CDs I still own after ten years! Lots of memories attached to it. I think "Busted" would be a good Rade song.**

**BernardMarx … I think Jade is an unreliable narrator too. I would like to put some more of her backstory in – hopefully I can fit it without making it too clunky. I think Jade is one of those people who wants to be miserable, so of course she can't see that. I'm planning to have Tori call her out on this. Will she survive it?**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Author's Note: Oh god, I apologize so much for this – 14 and 15 were really supposed to be only one chapter which got entirely too long. Just omfg I don't even know. I am happy with it, but dear god, someone stop me. I promise the rest will not be drawn out like this.**

**(I think you guys all know at this point that I'm a liar.)**

Friday evening arrives and it finds her willingly spending her time at Robbie Shapiro's house. What is the world coming to?

It's just – well, it's not like it _means_ anything, you know, other than the fact that it's cementing the blatant ruination of her social life. After his phone call to her on Wednesday, Shapiro had came over, and he'd taken her to get ice cream, and then he'd taken her to get coffee, at her request (he'd looked impressed by her intake. "I see you process caffeine quickly," he said. Jade had glowered and not bothered to respond).

He wasn't bad company. He was pretty quiet the whole time, actually, sensing she was pissed. She wasn't really sure why he was so amicable about spending an hour of silence sitting across from a surly girl, but she wasn't about to ask. Probably he didn't have anything better to do, you know.

He'd asked if she would need a ride to school in the morning, and – yeah, she would, so he'd done that, and he'd driven her home after, too, and he looked sort of lonely and awkward, as usual, standing and squinting at her beside his car, so she'd invited him in. Then of course Jeff had burst out of the hall closet and squirted him with a water gun, and Shapiro had just _laughed_, even though it was freaking December and like fifty degrees out, because he is insane. Jefferson had taken this as an invitation to show Robbie his entire collection of soda pop tabs. It took them an hour to collect them all back up from the carpet, and then she'd dragged him up to her room and made him set up her new DVD player and speakers. Shapiro had been rather complacent about the whole thing.

Complacent. That's a good word. He's so fucking passive, you know. Sometimes she wonders what she'd have to do to get a real rise out of him.

Their screenplay is finished, really, so there was no reason for her to agree to come to his house the next day. Cat had been squawking about having everyone over a bit later, so she was expecting that, and studiously not dreading it. She'd remembered Sophia's face earlier this morning as she'd been waiting for Robbie to pick her up – Jeff had been making a scene about his lunch.

"You want me to eat this banana?" he'd hollered. He'd thrown the banana across the room. "It's rotten! You can't even buy good fruit, Sophia? I'll get sick!"

Sophia had looked at Jade very darkly (it was not rotten!). Jade had slipped out of the room so she didn't have to glower back, and then Robbie had been there – with a coffee for her! So, after school, when he had said, "What do you wanna do? You want me to drop you off at home?" Jade had remembered Sophia's angry and drawn face – she hadn't even greeted Robbie, struggling with the screaming Jeff, and said, "No."

Shapiro thought about it. He'd said, "Okay. Want to come over?"

"Sure," she'd said, and he'd turned right onto the highway, towards his home.

They'd gotten inside Shapiro's house to find smoke billowing out of his kitchen and his sister nowhere to be seen. The stove timer was beeping, and probably had been for a while.

Shapiro makes a strangled noise and jets off towards the kitchen, screaming incoherently, tripping over his shoelaces. Jade tosses her bookbag onto the table in the living room, where it lands with a rude thump. She thinks that the sight of Robbie shrieking and flying off to the kitchen has been the best thing she's seen today. Her life is really sad.

"Oops," says his sister, appearing on the steps in her soccer shorts and toweling off her wet hair. Jade tries not to smile. Shapiro's sister is pretty cool, sometimes. She's not very Robbie-like at all, honestly. She's sort of messy and a little snarky. She usually has candy.

"Jessica!" shrieks Robbie from the kitchen. "You know you aren't supposed to use the stove when I'm not here!"

Jess looks moderately guilty. There's a small crash, and more smoke billows out from the kitchen. "Peppercorns!" shrieks Robbie.

Jade and Jess look towards the doorway in interest.

"I wanted to make you dinner," says Jess, flouncing down the steps. "But I also really needed to shower. Hey Jade!"

"Hey," she responds.

Girl Shapiro bounces by her into the kitchen as Robbie continues to squeak shrilly about fire hazards. Jade walks into the room, following Jess, and leans against the table, watching as Shapiro fitfully pulls on two oven mitts and studiously approaches the stove. For extra safety, he covers his head with a towel.

Jade and Jessica bite their lips.

"Wouldn't want to ruin that hair," Jade says, _sotto voce,_ as Robbie opens up the oven and screams anew. He scurries to the sink, precariously holding the smoldering casserole dish.

He gives her a brief dour look, not bothering with a rebuttal, and flutters some more. His hair bounces with his efforts, trying to overthrow the little kitchen towel – he really needs a haircut. Jess giggles. Her hair is just like Robbie's, curly and frizzy, but light brown, and not too bad, because she's a girl and can put it up and make it look cute. Jade thinks she'd look nice with some cute barrettes or something. Maybe her mom doesn't have time to take her shopping.

Robbie fiddles around at the sink, still muttering, as Jess crosses the kitchen behind him and starts rummaging through the cabinets. She beams as she pulls out a package of cupcakes.

"I hear cellophane!" squawks Robbie, turning with alarming speed. The towel falls from his head (thank god), as he darts across the room to snatch the offending treats away from her.

"Robbie!" squeals his sister, grabbing.

"This is not a dinner!" cries Shapiro, holding the cupcakes over his head. Jess growls and jumps. "This is glucose! Glutton! Gluttony, Jessica!"

"You jerk! Gimme!"

Shapiro holds the cupcakes higher, turning away from her. "You will never have these cupcakes!" he snits. "I am taller than you! I will always be taller!" Jess leaps again. Jade snorts.

It's sort of interesting to watch Shapiro interact with his sister. He pretty much becomes a different person – one who is direct and authoritative, affectionate and sometimes teasing. Jess usually looks at him like she thinks the sun rises and sets with him, which is – _disturbing_. No one should look at Shapiro like that!

(She isn't looking like that now, though. Jade guesses that the sun doesn't rise and set on mean big brothers who won't let you eat cupcakes for dinner.)

Anyway, Jade's also sort of disturbed to notice that Shapiro_ is _taller – taller than his little sister, who at twelve is almost Jade's height, and she's never been on the short side. He might actually be taller than Andre, as tall as Beck.

Disturbing. He isn't allowed to get taller than her, she thinks, watching the siblings. That's just – well, _wrong, _you know. He should always remain small and diminutive. People might actually start mistaking him for a boy!

Jess secures herself a giant tub of cookie dough from the fridge while Shapiro's got his back turned again and she and Jade slink back out to the living room.

"I know what you are doing!" Robbie screams from the sink without turning. "I bought that dough for the _holidays, _Jessica Lynn!"

Jess looks even more guilty now since he's pulled out the middle name card, but she does not relinquish the cookie dough. Jade feels moderately fearful – when they'd printed out their screenplay earlier in the week, Jade had signed her name with a flourish – _Jade O West._ Shapiro had hovered and speculated about the _O_ - "Did you take Beck's last name?" he'd gasped in horror.

Jade had closed her eyes in pain. "It's _Ottelia,_" she'd gritted out. Shapiro looked a little surprised. "My mom," Jade had said in explanation. Honestly, she likes her middle name, and it goes a lot better with her mom's last name – but she doesn't need Shapiro to start using it as a reprimand. Maybe she'll get lucky and he'll forget.

Jade watches TV with Robbie's sister and they talk about boys. Girl Shapiro has always had a little crush on Beck, which is less annoying now that they've broken up. She tells Jade all about the kid on the swim team at school that she sort of likes (Jade allows this talk, because the TV is on and Jess is sharing her cookie dough). Robbie keeps fluttering out to the doorframe, informing them that he has second-degree burns now and is that what they wanted, him horribly disfigured (Jade drawls sweetly, "More than you already are?"), and saying wonderful things like, "Oh my god! You can't eat raw eggs for dinner!"

It makes her feel a little happy, feel a little less heavier. It's almost dinner time, and she knows the rest of her friends – well, okay, _Cat,_ you know, and whatever Tori and Trina and Andre are, whatever Beck is to her now – are probably sitting down to eat with their families, talking about their days. But her dad is working late tonight, Jeff has a playdate until eight, and Sophia thinks she has no life skills. She'd put Jade's parking tickets _on __the fridge _for everyone to see (Shapiro had taken them down and put them in envelopes so they could mail them on the way to school. He even had stamps in his car. She'd had to spend the rest of her money to pay them – so much for the Arcade Fire, damn it – but Robbie'd just looked so distressed, worrying that her license would be suspended, so she'd done it, just to save herself the aggravation of hearing him _talk for forever_).

Shapiro's mom hasn't come home for dinner, and from a few weeks of observing, plus the lonely not-Thanksgiving, she guesses this is the norm. His father is – well, absent. Honestly, she doesn't know if the man's dead or in jail or in Bermuda with a teenaged wife. Shapiro gets very quiet when any mention of him is brought up, and she's a little curious. It would just be nice to know, so that she could make sure to – you know, not make any off-color jokes. She doesn't know why Shapiro has to tie everything to him so tightly and keep it like a secret.

Anyway – her family is all scattered; so is Shapiro's. It just, you know, it doesn't suck to not be alone in ... being alone.

Eventually – after they watch several episodes of Little House on the Prairie, which Jess loves and Jade had sort of gotten into while she was over for Thanksgiving – Jade starts pestering Robbie about going to Cat's house. Everyone is going to cry and speculate if they don't show up, she bets. And as riveting as the town of Walnut Grove is – well, there's going to be _beer _at Cat's, probably.

They head out to Robbie's car. He's fretting about his sister, who is going to go do schoolwork at a _boy's_ house (the blonde boy from the swim team. Shapiro is very upset over the blondeness, as he should be). "She's only twelve!" he cries once more.

"Almost thirteen," Jade points out happily, and Shapiro looks more upset.

Earlier, Jade had smiled. She'd began - "When I was twelve - " but Shapiro had quickly cut her off in horror, probably expecting some sort of overtly sexual story. What does he think of her?! Jeez. Doesn't he know that Beck was her first boyfriend? She was really going to say, "When I was twelve, I thought I would marry Stephen King on a beach in Hawaii."

Well, he doesn't need to know that. He'd just think she was a bad influence anyway, giving his little sister thoughts about older men and dangerous foreign islands.

Shapiro pauses now, obviously tiring of the rather horrific topic of his little sister's love life. He sets the car into drive and they start down the street. "Are you going to be – okay, at Cat's?" he asks. Jade gives him an odd look, so he continues: "I mean, I mean. Beck is going to be there. And ..." He pauses.

Oh. Beck's new girlfriend. Yeah.

She hasn't forgotten.

"Yeah," she says, a little surprised that, firstly, Shapiro's worrying for her, and secondly, she isn't too bothered by it. "It's fine. It's cool. Just, you know, keep me away from him." She thinks. "Like, stay with me, maybe."

"Okay," says Shapiro, amicable as always.

He's _so_ odd.

She feels pretty amicable herself, though, so she lets Shapiro have free rein of his radio. Over the past few weeks, a lot of her CDs have come to live in his car. He just needs so much help, you know? Also, he lets her play Courtney Love's band a lot, which Beck had never let her do. She thinks he rather likes her third album. It's a bit poppy, not as angry as some of the other stuff.

Creedence Clearwater Revival comes on the radio – she only knows the name because he'd lectured her one day - and Shapiro looks happy. She can note when he looks happy, because it's sort of rare that he actually does. She doesn't know how someone can be smiling and not look happy, but that's Robbie Shapiro for you. She supposes she'd look the same if she had hair like that and could never drink milk or eat bread and butter.

They're quiet for a few moments, letting the song play. Jade smokes out the window and Shapiro lets her, giving her only a brief disappointed glance. He learns quickly to let her do what she wants! Such a good pet.

_Long as I remember_

_The rain's been coming down.  
Clouds of mystery pouring_

_Confusion on the ground._

_Good men through the ages_

_Trying to find the sun;  
And I wonder, still I wonder_

_Who'll stop the rain?_

"You know," says Jade, flicking some ash out the window and watching as it rolls down outside the door, "your music is just as depressing as mine."

Shapiro looks contemplative. "You think?" he says.

"Yep," she says. "How'd you find out about this old shit, anyway?"

"Oh," says Shapiro. He studiously sets his blinker on to make the turn off the highway towards Cat's. "My dad liked them."

"What is he, like eighty?" (She thinks her dad may like them too. He isn't eighty, but he really is in his fifties.)

Shapiro looks at her dourly. "_No,_ he is not. He likes other stuff too! He liked Nirvana. He used to like _Pearl Jam._"

Shapiro needs to quit switching tenses when he speaks about his father. Used to? Who _stops_ liking Pearl Jam? How is she supposed to solve the mystery of whether Shapiro's dad is alive or dead when he keeps changing from past to present tense?

She thinks maybe a bad divorce. Maybe he cheated on his wife! That would be cause for upset.

Robbie still looks sort of indignant, so Jade nicely offers, "Well, my dad likes Jim Croce."

"Oh," says Robbie, and makes a face like he understands. "I'm so sorry."

* * *

At Cat's house, Shapiro hovers about, looking disapproving as Jade flits to and fro, set on securing drinks for herself. Beck is there, which sucks, and he's brought that little blonde girl, which sucks too, but she'd been expecting that. While the boys are talking in the corner, Jade slinks over and sequesters herself in front of Alison, leaning dangerously on the doorframe.

Alison – that is her name, right? Not Alice? – looks faintly terrified, which pleases Jade greatly.

"I just want you to know that I'm not here on a date with Beck!" she squeals immediately, winning points. God, her voice is like a fire siren! She sounds like a damn chipmunk from one of those movies that Cat likes. "I'm not dating him! He's so arrogant!" She looks more terrified.

"Yes," says Jade, "he is. You're pretty smart."

Alison or Alice looks suitably calmed, but still sort of hedgey and scared. "He just invited me to a few places. We're doing the play together. He's always_ leaning_ on things."

Jade smiles. "He does that," she says.

"I don't want you to kill me," blurts out Alison or Alice. "I think you should have the lead in the play! Not Tori Vega. Is she here tonight? So I wouldn't – I would never - "

"I won't kill you," Jade says absently, sort of surprised at herself.

There is the rather large sting of jealousy that Beck is moving on so quickly while all she can manage to do with herself is get ice cream with the Dork King, but – she's_ tired_, you know. She's tired of fighting with Beck and making him miserable and feeling miserable and everyone looking miserable. It's been over three months since they've split, and she's used to it now - she doesn't feel like causing Blondie any physical harm tonight. It's clear the girl isn't actually too radically enchanted by Beck, which is nice, and unexpected, since underclassmen usually swoon over him. However, the quick glance she sends over to him across Jade's shoulder shows that – well, _shit,_ Alice does really like him, though, doesn't she?

This is the kindest she's ever been in her life. She says, "He's not so bad, you know. Once you get past the leaning thing."

Alison or Alice nods timidly, looking at her in wary befuddlement. Shapiro has said the girl is nice, and he would know, being best friends with Beck, and – you know, at least she isn't _Tori._

"So – what're you, like, in orchestra?" Jade demands, switching the subject. "You play the clarinet?"

"Yes," says Alison-Alice, looking relieved. "Really, though, my passion is the violin. Also the bassoon. It's a lovely instrument. Have you heard - "

Oh Christ, now she thinks they're _friends!_ All Jade asked was a single question! What the hell is a bassoon? With her eyes, Jade signals to Cat to please get her something to drink. The redhead giggles and disappears into her kitchen.

Jade looks around covertly while Alison or Alice is squeaking at her about her love of woodwind instruments. There are two or three girls from Cat's writing class here – Jade doesn't care about them. Shapiro and Beck are still over by the couch, watching her warily. Both look very concerned, probably for different reasons. She can hear Vega #1 (Trina, that is – ugh, why would Cat invite her? She probably just showed up uninvited, as she is wont to do) screaming about alcohol somewhere off in the distance. She doesn't even see Andre anywhere. Good!

Cat, being her best friend, breezes by and gives Jade a whole bottle of wine! It is called 'Sweet Red.' It's just like Cat! Dear, sweet Cat, thank you. Jade drinks a bit and listens to Annamaria or Alison talk about orchestra for a bit. Her voice – which is small and painfully high – smooths out into a rather lovely lilt as the alcohol takes affect. Jade loves wine. Finally, she sees an out, and slips away, wandering blithely back to Shapiro, who looks scared.

"What were you talking to her about?" he asks in a whisper, and she has to lean very close to hear him over Cat's Christmas '09 mix that's playing.

She smiles very nicely at him, because that's what she is tonight, sweet and nice! "Just extolling Beck's virtues," she says innocently.

Shapiro looks doubtful. Jade takes her sunglasses out of her bag and puts them on her face. "Get me something to eat?" she asks, and pouts.

"Okay!" says Shapiro, and darts off. He is such a good dog. He's the best pet she's ever had, really. The Creative Writing Girls and Trina are taking up most of Cat's couch, so Jade elegantly sits on the floor and waits for Shapiro to return.

"Jade!" he shrieks in horror, a few moments later, when she lights a cigarette in the living room. Jade gives him an unimpressed look, smoking. Cat just careens over and leads Jade to the now-vacant sofa (when did that happen?), then nicely opens the window beside it so the smell will go outside. Shapiro follows them in distress and stands awkwardly beside the girls.

"My dad will just think it's from Mom," Cat says, waving some smoke out of her face, giggles, runs off. Life is nice. Hey, wasn't she holding a beverage?

"Shapiro," Jade says severely, "wasn't I holding a drink?"

Shapiro appears upset and bespectacled – which is such a funny word, really! "You were holding a whole bottle," he tells her – rather pointedly, she thinks.

"And?" Jade looks at him expectantly.

Shapiro stares back. "You drank it," he says flatly.

"Oh," says Jade, and pouts anew. "That's right. Will you get me another?"

Shapiro appears hesitant about the pout. "I cannot fulfill that request," he tells her. "You're drinking underage. I can't condone that!"

Beck, passing by, hands her a beer, and gives her a nice little smile. He must be happy she's talked him up to Alicia! She beams back at him.

Shapiro looks more upset! "Oh my god, you're grinning," he says in distress. "You never grin. You're intoxicated."

Jade laughs. "Don't be a buzzkill," she tells him. She drinks her beer. She smokes her cigarette. She feels sort of like a biker, smoking and drinking! Life is so nice, and Andre hasn't even shown up. Guess he doesn't like Cat so much after all. What was she worried about?

"I can't help it," Shapiro says. He's still standing awkwardly. She notes, rather meanly, that he hasn't brought her something to eat. He must need more training.

Jade waves her cigarette at him. "Why don't you – go talk to Vega or something?" Tori's just breezed in look frizzy as usual and holding a giant plate of cupcakes. "She looks like she needs help." She notes that her tone is almost pleasant, so she adds coldly, "As always."

Shapiro hesitates. "I thought I was supposed to stay with you," he reminds her quietly.

"I'm okay!" she gesticulates, and spills some beer on the couch. Whoops! Heh, they'll just think it's Cat's mom again! She purses her lips. How long will it take her to finish this beer? "You can go talk to Tori for ... nine minutes."

"Okay," Shapiro says doubtfully, and taps at his huge ugly wristwatch, setting it. He looks at her again awkwardly before turning and starting away.

Jade beams at his back. "When you come back, you can bring me another beer!"

Shapiro's shoulders hunch.

* * *

Somehow, eventually, she finds herself settled on the floor beside Robbie and Tori. She gives Tori a disgusted look, moves an inch closer to Robbie. She doesn't need any Vega germs! It's bad enough Trina is here. And, man, why did he have to be _Tori_ who brought cupcakes? Jade loves cupcakes.

Tori morosely gazes into her cup of soda. She hasn't been drinking, not that she ever does, but she's acting particularly maudlin, crying her sorrows into glasses of root beer. Shapiro told her covertly, earlier, that Vega's sad because of the breakup with her boyfriend. He's been two-timing her with some famous girl from Seattle. She has a webshow that Beck likes. It would always piss Jade off when he'd watch that – there's a blonde girl that co-hosts, and Jade hates blondes. They've been discussing this for the past few minutes - the cheating, that is, not Jade's distaste for blondes.

Now, she demands, "It wasn't the blonde, was it?"

Tori looks more depressed. She's really been letting herself go since the breakup - right now, she is wearing _sweatpants._ She also has cupcake frosting in her hair. "No," she says. "It was the other girl. The star of the show." Jade hadn't thought it possible for Tori to look more depressed, but at this, she does.

Jade snorts. "Who, the Asian one?"

"I don't think she is Asian, Jade," Shapiro comments absently. He looks longingly at the frosting in Tori's hair. Jade looks at it longing, too. It's probably buttercream.

Jade ignores him. "She isn't even very pretty! What's her name anyway, Caroline?" She thinks hard. "Carla?"

Shapiro smiles at her for some reason. Tori continues to look sad. "She _is_ pretty. And she's just so skinny," she says. "I'm so stupid!" She furrows her brow and looks ever the more devastated. Shapiro looks upset for her, and pats her shoulder a bit helplessly.

Jade almost feels bad.

Vega's really liked this guy. Cat had told her that Vega laid in Cat's bedroom and cried for an_ hour _when she and Shapiro had pulled up the pictures of Sven and Caroline together to show her ("What, were they _naked_ or something?" Jade had asked, mildly interested.

Cat had looked upset. "No, worse," she said. "_Holding hands._")_._

So: nicely, Jade says, "I bet your boobs are bigger."

Vega smiles a small smile. "Thanks, Jade," she says in a quiet voice.

"You _are_ stupid, though," Jade adds contemplatively. Shapiro smiles again.

From out of nowhere, suddenly, she hears Andre's booming echo across the room. She scowls, sitting up and knocking into Robbie. "_Andre_ is here?" she demands, waving her cigarette far too close to Shapiro's face, who squeaks. "When the hell did he get here?"

Robbie and Vega frown at her. "Jade, he's been here," Robbie tells her tactfully. "He's been here before we were."

WHAT?!

"_What?_" demands Jade, wrenching her arm away as Shapiro tries unsuccessfully once more to snuff out her cigarette.

Tori looks confused and a teeny bit appalled. "Jade, he said _hello_ to you!" she says.

"What?" she demands. When?! He had not! "No he didn't! When did he get here?"

Robbie and Vega exchanged furrowed brows, looking like twin birds. Herons, or something. Twin storks! Like on the pickle bottle! "I guess he's been in the kitchen a lot," Robbie suggests. "Helping Cat make drinks and stuff."

"Oh my God!" hollers Jade. Making drinks with Cat! And _stuff!_ Who knows what else they've been doing in that kitchen! Cat has no sense of decorum. This is wildly inappropriate. Making drinks _indeed._

Speaking of, she needs another drink. "I need another drink!" she hollers, stumbling up.

Shapiro makes an upset face. "I hear the grape juice is lovely this time of year!" he calls to her back. Oh god, how he hurts her.

She can't quite bring herself to go into the kitchen, though, she admits, meanly snagging another beer from Creative Writing Girl #2. What do you think she is, crazy? She can't go in there! She doesn't want to see the carnage of Cat and Andre's lovemaking!

Also, she's a bit dizzy.

She probably shouldn't be mixing wine and beer. Hm, but what was that saying? Wine before beer, and you're in the clear? No, but that can't be right. Who in their right mind, aside from her, even mixes beer and wine? Maybe she'll be sick later.

Oh, God! The night is horrible! She doesn't want to be sick! She should have stayed at Shapiro's! She can watch Little House with or without his sister! She make make her own fun! They have a lot of episodes DVR'd. Also, there was a new Adventure Time on tonight. Sometimes she watches it with Robbie, though she pretends not to like it. They have a lot of funny sayings. She likes that yellow dog. He's mathematical!

God, God, Vincent Price, why had she felt the need to come to Cat's house? All Cat has been playing all night is shitty Christmas music, and she hasn't even played any Goo Goo Dolls for Jade, not even 'Better Days!' She could be – at Shapiro's, watching the new Adventure Time. Shapiro has a big stereo in his living room, and he'd let her play the Goo Goo Dolls, she bets, any album she wants! She would play Superstar Car Wash, she thinks decisively, and sips the beer. She'd play 'We Are The Normal.' Shapiro would like the violin. But no - now she's just stuck at Cat's house, with Cat being indecent in the kitchen with Andre, Tori Vega crying to her and Shapiro with frosting in her hair, and Cat doesn't even have On Demand!

Life sucks. She clutches her beer sadly.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

She almost crashes into Beck in the hallway past the living room. She's been hiding out for a few minutes, nursing her beer, and so far she's managed to go the whole night without interacting with him. So much for that.

They stare at each other in brief horror for a few seconds.

"Cat and Andre," Beck says in a rapid frantic tone, and everything is still blurring together a little bit so it just sounds like he's said _Candre_ or something, which makes her giggle.

She sobers (HA! AS IF!) quickly, though. "I _know!_" she says, like she's been aware of it the whole night - Beck doesn't need to know! "Did you see them? In the kitchen! Christ!"

"I _know!_" Beck parrots, and runs his hand through his hair in frazzlement (which is totally a word, and if not it should be. The wonderful thing about English, unlike math and stupid science, is that you can take liberties with it!). "I walked in to get ice and saw them kissing over a bottle of Smirnoff!"

"Oh my _god_!" hisses Jade. She pauses. "Wait, there's vodka here?"

Beck looks rather verklempt (Robbie's taught her this word - it stems from a German word, and she thinks he's said it's Yiddish. It means overcome with convulsive emotions. A good word to go with frazzlement). Jade continues, "Shit, did Robbie see?" Also, was the Smirnoff flavored?

Beck takes pause – probably because it's one of the first times she's called Shapiro by his first name aloud. "I don't think so," he says slowly. "I mean, don't you think we'd be drowning in tears if he had?"

"Yeah," she says musingly, and slumps to the floor in despair – okay, not really, the room is just spinning a little. "Fuck, I didn't even know Andre was here!"

Beck slides down to the floor beside her, brows furrowed. "How did you not see him come in?" he asks. "He's been in the kitchen with Cat most of the night – but he said _hello_ to you!"

Jade glowers. "I may," she says eloquently, "be a little intoxicated."

Beck frowns. "It's early, Jade," he says, sounding concerned for her, which makes her feel a little upset and bitter. He doesn't have the right any longer.

"So what?" she snits. "I was – I wasn't paying attention to Andre, who cares about Andre, I didn't think they'd be _sucking face_!" Brilliantly, she adds, "I am _being good!_ I told Robbie I would be! I needed some drinks to get through being nice to your little girlfriend! Cat got me wine!"

"Ali's not my girlfriend," Beck says quickly, flushing. He says: "And, um, thank you, for that. The being nice."

"I am nice," Jade says morosely to the carpet.

Beck smiles – maybe a bit sadly, but she can't really tell. It's dim here in the hallway, and she is _intoxicated_. "I know," he says. "You can be." He is sitting very close to her.

That – everything – upsets her, so she just demands swiftly: "Candre!"

Beck looks confused before his face clears and he nods. "Did you talk to Cat?" he asks. "I know we didn't get to finish talking the other day, but - ?" he pauses hopefully, and Jade stares at him for a few seconds before she gets what he's asking.

"I_ tried_ to," she tells him gruffly. "But I was – I didn't really – I was trying to be, you know, _tactful,_ I'm not very good at that – "

Beck offers a little half-smile and nicely doesn't say anything.

"I didn't really get to, you know, finish or anything," she says. "I mean – well, shit, she likes _Andre,_ you know? She doesn't like Robbie. I wanted to tell her to chill, but my stepmom came in and was being a huge bitch."

Beck smiles sympathetically. He knows how Sophia can be. One time when he had been over, she'd yelled at Jade and her dad for ten minutes for throwing out the salmon she'd cooked and ordering a pizza. She had actually succeeded in making Jade feel _guilty! _There was a lot of sugar in pizza sauce, you know, and the previous week Dad's sugar level had been over three hundred! He'd snuck a soda that day, though - Sophia had also screamed about that.

Wait, no thinking of Sophia, not tonight. Still, though, Jade feels herself getting worked up. "I really just can't believe them," she says, gesticulating some more. "Cat! And Andre! God! No one cares about anyone! Doesn't anything matter? Nothing? Nothing matters?"

"Well," says Beck.

"What about the sacred bonds of friendships?" she demands loudly.

Beck bites his lip. He is possibly being amused at her. "I don't know, Jade," he says.

Jade crosses her arms and leans heavily against the wall. "I don't know why they can't just control themselves," she grunts. "You don't date someone your friend likes! You don't date your friend's friend who likes you! Um. No. Or you don't date your friend when your friend likes you! And knows your, your friend. Yeah! That's, like, I mean - how d'you think I'd feel if you went out with – with _Tori,_ you know?"

Beck looks very upset! He says, "Jade, I would never do that to y - "

"Or!" Jade declares wildly. "I mean, how would you feel if _I_ went out with Tori?"

Beck bites his lip and makes a very strange face. "Well..." he says slowly.

"_Terrible_, I know!" interrupts Jade. Beck smiles. She continues: "Poor Robbie," she says mournfully. "He's really not so bad, Beck. It's not his fault that his hair looks like that. I mean, it's just genetics, you know? Not everyone can look like you and me."

Beck nods very seriously. "I know," he says.

God, they are just on the same wavelength tonight!

"He doesn't deserve this," Jade continues. "I feel _bad_ for the kid! And I hate feeling bad, you know. He set up my DVD player. He bought me ice cream the other day."

In an odd voice, Beck says, "Did he?"

"Yes," she says, and goes quiet for a moment, thinking of it sadly. Why is there no ice cream now? Beck also looks sad, she can only assume because he didn't get any ice cream. "What are we going to do?" she demands. "Can you talk to Andre?"

"Yeah, I'm planning on it," says Beck. "If I can get him away from Cat's mouth for a second."

Oh my god, that's right, they've been kissing! Disgusting! She clutches Beck's shoulders in a great panic. "Beck," she says. "We cannot let Shapiro see their mouths touching. We _can't._"

Beck looks amused by her some more, and doesn't move to remove her hands. His shoulders feel very nice. She does miss his shoulders. And his arms. And - "I know," he says, breaking up her thoughts. "Look, if you can get Cat into the living room - "

Then Shapiro comes out of the bathroom and stares at them. They stare back dumbly.

"Um," says Jade. "I need another drink." Gracefully, she clods to her feet and stumbles back down the hallway, away from the boys. Cat! She must find Cat! Over her shoulder, she hears Robbie ask: "What was that about?"

"Just talking," Beck says casually. "You know. Girl stuff."

* * *

Back in the living room, Jade makes herself useful, teasing Tori, doing her Jane Seymour act. She doesn't want to give Vega any special treatment just because she's been dumped, you know. Tough love! It really works. Vega laughs, rolls her eyes, sighs.

Finally she manages to wrangle Cat over to her - "Jade, what are you _doing_?" Cat giggles, as Jade picks her up and carries Cat over her back like she's Christmas presents. Cat is so damn skinny! She can wear clothes from the children's section. Jade just hates her so much - they should have never become friends?

"You are not spending any time with me!" Jade cries. "It's the holidays! It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!" Cat laughs again, trying to pull away. Jade declares, "Your hair looks awful! Why do you always wear it up!" She pulls Cat's ponytail out in a smooth motion.

Cat giggles some more – surprise – and settles down next to her on the couch. "You're very drunk," she comments lightly.

"I am not!" snits Jade. "You can't even tell. I am a beacon of poise and beauty."

Cat smiles nicely and lets Jade start to braid her hair into twelve different sections. She wonders if Cat's been drinking – they've been invited to a few parties since joining Hollywood Arts, and Cat usually has a drink or two, socializing, but Jade knows that she's usually careful, remembering her Mom's drinking problem. She wonders, for the first time, if it was wrong of her to encourage Cat to throw a 'big girl' party, complete with cocktails.

Andre passes by, smiling at them horribly, and pauses to tug a little on one of Cat's braids. Jade bats his hand away in mortification. God, can't they control themselves?! A quick glance across the room shows her that Robbie is distracted, deep in conversation with Vega. They're probably talking about cute puppies or John Wilkes Booth or something.

Andre laughs at her. "You okay, Jade?" he asks. "Hey, Little Red!"

Cat grins goofily back up at Andre, scandalizing Jade. "Andre 3000!" she says. _Oh my God._

Beck finally pulls himself away from Alicia or Alison long enough to note the horror taking place. He stands up so quickly he almost knocks the girl to the floor! He can be rather thoughtless, Jade thinks absently. He touches Alicia's shoulder in soft apology before hurrying over to Jade and Cat.

"Guys," he says, "can I talk to you?"

"Sure!" chirrups Cat. She beams expectantly up at him, whacking Jade in the face with some of her face. Jade tries valiantly not to vomit. She doesn't really trust herself to speak. She thinks she's overdone it when she lifted Cat with one arm. You've got to pull from the stomach, yanno, and her stomach is. Well. Not happy with her. Right now.

Beck looks around, casting a severe frown at Andre. "Maybe not out here," he says slowly. "Andre? The kitchen? If you would?"

What a dork.

Andre frowns back. "You all right, man?" he asks. "Is this about you and Jade? You guys fighting again?"

Jade growls very loudly.

"Nope," Beck says brightly, plastering a tight smile on his face. He looks over towards Robbie and Tori, the smile growing ever tighter. "Jade and I are not fighting! Just – you and Cat, please? Kitchen? Yeah?"

"Kay kay!" says Cat, standing – she moves herself away from Jade rather carefully, which Jade does not miss, and she thanks Cat silently – only Cat knows that Jade is actually not an impenetrable drunk.

"Jade?" says Beck. "Do you want to come with me?"

Well, it would be much less messy if she throws up in the kitchen, you know. And she is very curious as to what Beck is going to say to the two lovebirds. But the thought of standing right now is very upsetting to her. She thinks standing may actually be impossible.

"Hrrrrrm," she says eloquently.

"Jade is so tired," Cat says brightly, saving her – why can Cat be so observant towards her, and not know that dating Andre is going to crush Robbie? "She was up late making me a new layout for Splashface."

Andre and Beck look confused. Jade growls anew. Maybe not so observant! She doesn't need the whole world finding out she's a computer nerd! And she had not been up late! Geez, what does Cat think she is, an amateur? She can whip up a layout header in minutes! _Minutes._ Ugh!

"Okay, that's cool," Beck says, looking anxious. What does he think, at midnight Cat and Andre are going to meld together? She guesses he's trying to be discreet, in his doofy Beck-way. "Come on, guys. Just you two, then."

Cat and Andre trail after Beck into the kitchen, both looking puzzled. God, how can they both not _know_? Jade sits very still and dwells on this for a few minutes, sipping someone's discarded ginger ale. Maybe she and Beck are just crazy and are making too big a deal out of things. But, no – sometimes, still, they can be sort of like-minded, and, you know – Beck has been friends with Shapiro for way longer than her. If he thinks it's a problem …

Also, _ew_. She's just thought Shapiro was her_ friend_. It must be the alcohol. God, she's just going to be drunk forever, isn't she?

Five minutes – well, maybe it's five, maybe it's only a moment, maybe it's ten years, she sort of has that awful drunk-sense of time going on – pass and no one emerges from the kitchen. Trina and friends collapse beside her on the sofa, which is very rude, so she drags herself up and wanders back over to where Shapiro and Vega are sitting on the floor. She feels a bit like she's underwater, which is nice. She sits primly next to Shapiro. God, the boy just takes up so much space! She had not sat down practically in his lap, yet here she is! So annoying!

Shapiro sifts over slightly to make room for her as Tori watches them with her speculative bird-like frowny-face. Vega's always frowning around like she knows things! What does she know? Nothing! Hey, wait. Maybe she knows about Cat and Andre! Andre is one of Vega's best friends, and – oh my god she _knows_! And she hasn't stopped it! She doesn't care about Robbie! She shouldn't even be sitting here! Traitorous Latina wench! Jade glowers very much, feeling unsteady.

"You okay, Jade?" Robbie asks from somewhere beside her. Jade turns in slow-motion to glare at him.

"I am fine!" she snits, and slugs his shoulder, pulling back slightly at the last moment, so he won't cry out. It's not very productive to beat on your Lit Media partner, really. His shoulder looks very comfortable, so she lays her head there and closes her eyes, listening raptly for shouts in case Beck gets too worked up (he's very sensitive about his friendship with Shapiro – she hopes he isn't being too mean to poor Cat).

Robbie makes an odd, choked noise, going a little stiff, but he lets her head remain on his shoulder. Jingle Bells is playing for the umpteenth time, and Jade tries hard to block it out, beginning playing Superstar Car Wash on the record player in her head. She thinks about John Rzeznik for a while, leaning on Shapiro, some of his pointless conversation with Vega filter through to her ears. Oh, boring. They're talking about a history test.

Jade makes it to track three in her head, which is a very good song, she thinks. _You beat your head upon the wall, you disconnect yourself from it all. _She hums happily into Shapiro's neck. He makes another strange noise. He is so weird. What's wrong with him? Maybe he's having an asthma attack, shit!

Jade opens her eyes and moves back slightly to ask if he's dying. She notes Beck and Andre finally coming out of the kitchen. They both looks a little unhappy. Andre makes a contemplative face at Beck, who stares back, unsmiling. He says something that Jade can't hear, and Andre hesitates a little before shrugging. He says something back, giving Beck a friendly little rabbit-punch on the shoulder, but Beck doesn't look any happier. Interesting. She pulls her gaze back to Robbie. "Do you need your inhaler?" she demands, and he and Vega look a bit confused.

"Um," says Robbie slowly. He rubs his neck, which is rather pink for some reason. He's getting a rash! He must have eaten one of Vega's cupcakes, the little traitor! She pokes at his neck hard, and he laughs and bats her hand away. "Jade, stop! I'm fine."

Jade grumbles something about cupcake thieves and settles back onto his shoulder, watching the people move around them. Andre is puttering around, gathering up his jacket and sweater. She feels very much like he is avoiding her eyes.

"I'm outie," Andre says lightly to the whole room, and he sweeps past them, heading to the front door without glancing down at her, Tori, and Robbie. The door closes with a soft click.

Tori sets her face into its standard mode - frowning, looking a little miffed. "Um, okaaay," she says slowly. Jade watches her gaze move to the door, then to Beck, before settling back on her and Shapiro.

"Weird," comments Robbie. "What's up with him?"

"The _moon_ is up!" cries Jade brilliantly. She doesn't need them _speculating_.

She feels Robbie's face turn towards her as he and Vega give her another one of their annoying glances.

The party breaks up fairly quickly after that. Cat simply will not come out of the kitchen! Across the room, Jade feels Beck being silent and upset. There's this weird – she hates to use cliches like this – blanket of tension that seems to have fallen over everyone, and she doesn't like it. She lays determinedly on Shapiro's shoulder and floats in and out of sleep, listening to the Goo Goo Dolls on the wonderful radio in her head. She thinks Beck comes over to them, briefly, but he doesn't really say anything. He and Alison-or-Alice leave too.

Over an ocean of alcohol, she hears Shapiro waterily (another word that should totally be a word, if it isn't one!) telling Tori that they need to get going, too. Oh _do_ they?! He doesn't own her! There is no _they!_ Maybe she wants to stay at Cat's house! Maybe she wants to go to Beck's! She thinks sadly of his shoulders, and is too tired to voice any of this.

Annoying people tugging on her arms and coaxing her to stand. God, these Christmas lights Cat's put up are so pretty! They blink intermittently.

"Come on, Jade," Shapiro says softly from somewhere next to her. Oh, is he what she's leaning on? "Time to go home."

"Nrrghdon'twannagohome," Jade says, and pulls his hair. She must make sure he gets a haircut over winter break! The nice wall that is Shapiro moves further away, upsetting her. Annoying hands – oh god, they better not be his! Actually, oh god, they better not be Vega's! - put her jacket on her. Then the wall is back – she's sandwiched between Shapiro and a particularly annoying object she fears is Tori – and they take slow paces to the front door.

"You got your phone?" the Shapiro-wall asks her.

"Hhrgh," says Jade in confirmation.

"Okay," says the Shapiro-wall nicely. "Careful – steps now! Three steps down, Jade. One, two – eek! - three!"

Jade tries very hard to step on the blundering shape that must be Tori, which squeaks.

Sounds of car keys. Settling down into the passenger seat of Shapiro's car – his air freshener smells nice. She and Cat had picked it out for him at the mall. They're good friends to him. That's when she'd gotten the second parking ticket. Vega, from somewhere very far away, saying something annoying. Robbie laughs quietly. She feels him very close to her, buckling her seat belt for her. She bats him away. She isn't a baby! She can do these things for herself. She opens her eyes slowly, leans heavily on the window to send Tori a little glower.

Vega goes back inside after twenty-five more years of being irritating. Robbie comes around to his side of the car and settles in, checking all his mirrors like they might have moved on their own and being horribly dorky. Jade closes her eyes in pain. John Rzeznik, where are you? Shapiro pats her seat belt, making sure she's buckled in properly. Annoying! He pulls away from the curb, and Jade watches as Cat's house with all its bright lights disappears.

She rolls down her window, turning her face to the crisp night air, watching the streetlights go by as the rumble slowly down the road towards her house. She only lives a few streets over from Cat. The ride is too short. She's not ready for the night – weird as it has been, tired as she is – to be over. She doesn't want to go home and be alone in her room, or worse, to see Sophia glowering at her. She wonders if she's told Dad about her parking tickets yet. Dad will make his most disapproving face ever, which she can't take. Or worse, he'll still be at work, and she'll be alone with Stepmonster, and she just - can't. Doesn't want to.

"Don't take me home," she says suddenly to Robbie, and he glances over in befuddlement. His skin looks very pale in the moonlight – almost porcelain. It's really a shame that he dresses how he does and carries himself the way he does. He has nice skin.

"Where … do you want to go?" he asks cautiously.

Jade grunts, leaning out the window again. She brushes some hair out of her face – god, she hates the wind! She starts to gather her hair up away from her face. She still has Cat's hair-tie. "I don't know," she grunts. Why does he care where she wants to go?! It isn't his business! "I'll – I'll go sleep in Beck's RV."

Beck's bed is so comfortable. He has a down comforter. She misses that comforter. He only screamed a little when she spilled nail polish on it.

Robbie makes another odd noise. "That's – probably not a good idea," he says.

He is so annoying! Why is he talking so much? Can't be just be a good chauffeur? Her head is spin-y and she wants to sleep. "Just drop me off at the park," she commands him. "I'm a big girl! I'll sleep on the slide!"

"It's after midnight, Jade!" Robbie squeals severely. "I am not leaving you at a park! Why – why don't you want to go home?"

"I just _don't_!" she hollers. "Why do you ask so many questions?"

"Probably because you're insane!" Robbie cries back, and then he takes her to her house anyway, the huge jerk! She presses down on the button on her door and locks him out of his car when he steps out and comes around to her side to help her out.

"Jade!" he cries in frustration, trying to grab through the open window. She bites at his hand.

"I told you not to take me here!" she tells him. Robbie looks around, appalled. He probably thinks she is being too loud. God, all the lights are off at home! No one expected her to come back tonight. She doesn't see Dad's car. She bats Shapiro's hands some more as he tries again to get to the door locks.

"Are you insane?" Robbie demands, struggling with her, hair bouncing all around dumbly in the wind. "It is after midnight! I'm not dumping you at a park! Do you want to get _murdered_?"

Across the street, the Delaney's porch light flickers on. They are so fucking nosy.

"Peppercorns!" cries Robbie in despair. He looks down at her balefully.

"Robbie," Jade wails.

"What!"

"Robbie!" she wails again. Shapiro squeaks in frustration. "I don't want to stay _heeeere._ Don't make me stay here!" She demands: "_WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?_" Another porch night, this one next door, turns on.

Robbie looks around frantically, like a rabbit that has been cornered by hunting dogs. "Oh, geez, Jade!" he whines. "Stop yelling! Oh god, you – okay … you can stay at my home, I guess. Why you'd want to, I have no clue."

Jade frowns doubtfully up at him. Sleep at Shapiro's? But his couch is covered in plastic! It will squeak all night! "Really?" she asks him. "I told you you can drop me at Beck's."

Robbie emits another flustered noise. "Are you guys magically sleeping together again?" he demands, not like it's any of his business.

"Noooo," Jade drawls thoughtfully, thinking again of Beck's shoulders and his nice down comforter. They really hadn't had any frantic, passionate breakup sex. She wonders if it's too late for that. She remembers the bright flash of Alison-or-Alicia's white-blonde hair, and dismally thinks it probably is. She taps Shapiro on the nose in great sorrow. Another light goes on next door.

Robbie scurries back around to the driver's side. "Open this door!" he commands her. She gives him a warily glare – is he going to drag her out over the steering wheel? – but after a moment, does as he asks. All that he does so, is settle back into his seat, looking burdened, and starts backing his car out of the driveway.

"Your neighbors probably think we're in a domestic dispute," he informs her crisply.

"Good," says Jade, and laughs. Give them something to complain about other than Jeff riding his bike over their stupid flowerbeds. "Where are we going?" she asks suddenly.

Shapiro slows her car and stares at her like she's insane. "I am taking you to my house," he says slowly. "You are not sleeping on the slide, or at Beck's."

"Oh, okay," she says, mollified, and goes to sleep against his window. Creedence Clearwater is _still_ playing! She thinks he's snuck a CD in on her. She drifts in and out, the brightness from the streetlamps pass coloring her eyelids as they pass them by, dimly aware of his car finally coming to a stop, and the movements of him once more getting out.

Shapiro unbuckles her seat and she glances around mistrustfully, checking to make sure they're actually at his house and he hasn't just driven around the block a few times and dropped her back at home. He looks expectant, though, and very tired, so eventually she drags herself up and follows him, stumbling a bit, into his house.

Robbie pauses as they enter the living room, looking speculatively at the stairs. "Do you want – the couch? No, my mom might see you. Come on, Jade, you can sleep in my room." He hesitates, tries to take her by the wrist to lead her, but she smacks his hand away.

"Don't help me," she mutters, then lets him half-carry her up the steps anyway. The hallway at the Shapiro's is the longest hallway in the history of the universe. It is so wearisome. She feels like Moses crossing that desert. Shapiro shushes her a bit, even though she isn't making much noise. When they get to his room, finally, she collapses ceremoniously upon his bed, even though he has hideous Galaxy Wars sheets and she normally wouldn't be caught _dead_.

She blinks blearily as Shapiro turns the light on. It's a little sobering – she suddenly realizes that she may actually be, you know, inconveniencing him a bit. She feels as though she's made a scene, and she feels a little cowed for it. Would it have been so very horrible to simply walk inside her house, go past the cold silence, and lay in her own bed?

Also, yeah, Shapiro's bed. He may want to sleep in it. She looks around at him. "Should I sleep on the floor?" she mumbles. She's startled at how small her voice sounds, but she can't do anything about it.

Robbie takes pause, looking down at her sort of oddly. It's a face she's never seen on him before, and she doesn't know what it means. "No," he says, "it's fine. You're a guest." He turns away and goes to his closet, pulling out an extra blanket for himself. "I can sleep on the floor. I like the floor. Me and the floor? Good friends."

He's totally batty.

She curls around his pillow, which smells nice. Maybe from his shampoo, or his soap. She listens to the fitful quiet sounds of him making a bed on the floor. "Thanks, Robbie," she says suddenly. She hasn't meant to say it, meant to thank him. She's – she's – she's making it a thing, and she hates making things.

Robbie is quiet for a beat. He looks up at her briefly, then away. He says lightly, "For what?" then he turns his ceiling fan on, turns the light off. He lays down on the floor and doesn't say anything else.

Jade feels okay. The ceiling fan clinks quietly above them, filler noise. She feels safe up on the bed. She's okay, yes.

She sings some Elton John, misquoting it, Cat-quoting it, as she and Shapiro had found that so amusing.

Robbie laughs from below her, sounding a little startled. She can feel him smiling in the dark, and she wonders if it is a real one. She curls tighter around the pillow, falls asleep.

**AN: Notice how Jade is slowly starting to call him 'Robbie' more and more in her head, instead of 'Shapiro?' Also, sorry again.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Fifteen**

She can tell Shapiro knows about Cat and Andre as soon as she comes up to him after first period that Tuesday. She can tell he knows, because the boy looks like he's just eaten a pound of insecticide, and – what else would he look like that over, and still come to school?

The only part is, she just – she can't figure out how he knows!

There's no Improv today, so he wouldn't have seen anything then. Did Cat_ tell_ him? Then she follows his gaze and – oh, there they are, right across the hall. She'd sort of been on Shapiro Alert and hadn't even been looking for Cat and Andre, she guesses. Well, whatever, right?

They aren't kissing or anything, but they look like they could at any minute, God! They're standing very closely at Andre's locker and Cat's holding onto his wrist and saying something up at him and Andre's smiling down at her in this really affected way and it's all just very disgusting.

"Oh," says Jade slowly, and comes to lean against the locker beside the frozen statue that was once Shapiro. "Yeah. I see that's happening now."

Shapiro holds his Calculus book tightly. He looks very pale - but that doesn't really mean anything, she thinks. "Yeah," he repeats in a weird voice. "Um. You – uh. What – what is t...that, uh, exactly? That, that, what's happening, I mean."

Wow. He hasn't stuttered like that since Principal Helen had worn a very low-cut shirt to assembly back at the end of October (it was a terrible experience for all involved).

He'd been doing so much better lately.

Jade purses her lips. "Uh," she says, very eloquently herself. She doesn't know how she wants to handle this – should she let him know that she has known? "They're, uh, dating now, I guess."

"Oh," says Shapiro in a funny disconnected voice. He clutches the Calculus book ever tighter, as if it could protect him from the horrific rays of Cat/Andre that are beaming over towards them. "That's – that's - " he trails off and keeps staring, then abruptly his head drops, bringing his gaze down to his shoes.

"Disgusting?" Jade suggests brightly. "An aberration? Vomit-inducing? An abscess upon the globe of romance? I think it's all those things. Yanno - abscess, that's a good word. Descriptive. I like it."

She is not babbling. Absolutely not.

Shapiro is still staring at his sneakers in abject misery. His head is ducked so low that his huge nose is practically drooping against his shoelaces. "Nice," he says. "It's nice."

Jade stares at him in disbelief. _It's nice? Is he kidding her?_

Shapiro straightens up, squaring his thin shoulders and lifting his head the smallest fraction of an inch. He holds onto his math book like a lifeline. His knuckles are very white – she didn't think he could get any paler. He says, "I should get to class."

"Yeah," Jade offers, still leaning and looking at him, "okay."

Shapiro doesn't move. "I have math now," he tells her, which is stupid, because she knows that. He looks like he's rooted to the floor, and he just keeps staring at nothing now. Oh god, is he having a mental breakdown right here?!

She doesn't – well, she doesn't know what to call him that is comforting. She's slipped up too many times, drunk at Cat's party, and then yesterday after school, calling him_ Robbie_. She can't be doing that. She tries: "Rob," but that's, you know, _wrong_, so she just settles for: "Shapiro." Okay, okay, that'll do. "Look, Cat is not exactly the most..."

"Huh?" says Shapiro, actually moving to turn and look at her, and she trails off. He sucks on his bottom lip for a moment, and Jade watches him, idling. His mouth is always so shiny. She wonders why. Shapiro says, "Jade, it's fine. You don't have to do that."

Jade's eyebrows shoot up her forehead in innocence. "Whuh?" she says, elegant as always. "I'm not – doing anything. What's fine?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he says. "I just – I have – class."

He turns from her, finally, and starts down the hallway, looking sort of like a zombie, or a war casualty. Maybe a war casualty who's_ become_ a zombie. Jade watches after him for a moment more, then looks away.

* * *

She's getting ahead of herself, though, isn't she? As usual.

Waking up in Shapiro's bed that Saturday had been only mildly horrific. It's not like he had been _next to her_, or anything. That would be a real horror movie. She'd stepped on his face when she'd climbed out in a blind panic.

Shapiro hadn't – thank God – made her_ talk_ about it, or anything, why she hadn't wanted to go home. She thinks he might have understood. She was feeling a bit better then, despite the headache.

All he'd done was ask her if she would be needing a ride to school on Monday (yes please, but minus the _please_, and add the _you dork_), and then she'd swooped out of the house unscathed. It was easy to sneak out of Shapiro's, because no one's ever home there.

She'd taken the bus across town and walked the few remaining blocks back to her house. She'd paused when she went past Cat's house, looking, but she didn't feel like going in.

It was still early when she got home – just past ten. Dad's car was back in the driveway. He'd been asleep on the couch in his purple robe. He was snoring slightly. Jade took the time to look down at him for a moment and despair over the hideous purple robe. Jeff and Sophia were in the kitchen, eating breakfast. She'd popped her head in to glower for a few moments.

Sophia was making bacon, which made her hesitate. Jeff beamed at her with syrup on his face. "Hi Jade!" he bugled happily. "Happy Saturday!"

Jade inched a little further into the kitchen. "Hey," she said warily. She stole a piece of bacon from his plate, and he squealed.

"There's more, Jeffy," Stepmonster said in consolation. She gave Jade an indeterminable glance. "Do you want breakfast?"

"_No,_" Jade had lied, sitting down. Sophia floated back to the stove as Jeff continued to look hurt over the bacon.

"Thank you for paying your tickets," Sophia said to the processed meat still bubbling on the stove.

Jade grunted, and stole Jeff's orange juice, too (Jeff squawked). "Thank Shapiro," she grumbled.

"Hm," Sophia said in happiness to the bacon. The woman was so bipolar! Just the other day she had been screaming about bananas; now she was humming to her meat. She said, "I don't want to fight, Jade. It's almost Christmas."

"Who's fighting?" Jade had mumbled into the juice glass. Jefferson looked more and more upset about girl germs.

"Sophia," he said to distract himself, "I want toast. You said you'd make it! I'm still waiting. Are you _lying_ to me?" He'd trembled slightly with the indignity of it all. Jade smiled into his orange juice.

Sophia floated blithely over to the cabinet in response, where she pulled the bread out. "Do you want toast, too, Jade?" she asked.

Jade grunted once more, still watching Sophia warily. Jeff tugged his orange juice glass out of her hand, and she let him. "I'll make it," she'd said finally. "You always burn everything."

"All right," Sophia had said, still in happiness, and floated back to the stove to flip the bacon. Jade rose and went over to the counter herself, opening up the bread bag and putting four slices into the toaster. Whoever kept setting it to high needed to _stop_. "Jeffy," Sophia said, "go wake Dad up for me?"

Jeff gave her a wary look. "I'll do it, but only because I want to," he had said, and scurried off to the living room, leaving Jade alone with Stepmonster. Jade stared hard at the toaster. Sophia flipped the bacon again.

"So where were you last night?" Stepmonster asked conversationally. "Were you at Bobby's?"

"_Ew what?_" shrieked Jade in rage and guilt. Also: _Bobby!_ "Gross, no! I, I stayed at Cat's house."

"Oh, okay," Stepmonster said blithely, and turned off the stove. "Just curious."

Disgusting.

So that had been breakfast, and that had been okay. Later Cat had called her, and surprise surprise, she just babbled on about Andre for _eighteen minutes_. She was seeing him tomorrow.

"We're going to Nozu," Cat told her dreamily.

Jade had growled slightly. Obviously, the girl cared for nothing. "So what did Beck say to you last night?" she'd asked, feigning innocence.

"Well," Cat had said haltingly. "Nothing much."

"Oh," was all Jade had said.

So that was how they were going to play this? She scowled up at her ceiling - she hated being direct with people. Still, though, she'd made herself say: "Look, Cat. You – I don't care if you want to date Andre. But look – you gotta know Shapiro still likes you."

Cat had been quiet. She said, "I mean, he said he didn't. Anymore."

"Yeah," Jade said shortly. "That's what he said. So what're you going to do about it?"

Cat was quiet some more. She said, "Jade, I like Andre."

No shit.

"No shit," Jade said. Cat hadn't said anything. "Well, do what you want," Jade continued, feeling sort of weird, because – she didn't really know what to say to Cat, and that _never_ happened.

"Okay," Cat said, and then changed the subject to what she should order for dinner that night.

So that was that, and Jade had spent most of Sunday by herself, babysitting Jeff as Sophia and Dad went out on one of their stupid day-date (Dad didn't like to drive at night). Beck had called her, which was gross and annoying, so she hadn't answered. Cat called her again that night, happy, and had had to detail every minute of her _three-hour_ Nozu date with Andre. Jade guesses that's what it was, really a date, and not just the two of them hanging out, and why did Cat think she cared that Andre had ordered banana ice cream for dessert?

It felt really awesome, you know, hearing about someone else's date, when she would probably never find another boy that liked her again on this earth. She didn't need to hear about how cute Andre's sweater was. Actually, she _highly doubted_ it was even cute!

She wondered if she had been so insufferable about Beck.

Jade had always tried hard not to gush over any boy, especially since she knew Cat had never had a real boyfriend before (Vega's ex whom Cat had went out with for two seconds didn't really count, especially since Tori had kissed him while Cat had been covered in cheese and crying). Maybe Cat didn't realize what she was doing, telling Jade so much about how great Andre was. How annoying it was.

Well, it annoyed her regardless.

Eventually she'd managed to get Cat off the phone, and Jeff had looked depressed, having been eavesdropping.

"So Cat has a boyfriend now?" he'd asked in great depression. "Who am I supposed to marry, Jade?"

"He's not really her _boyfriend,_" Jade had snarled in denial. Not yet, maybe. They've already been kissing, apparently, but that doesn't mean anything, right?

If Cat could wait until after Christmas to be disgusting with him in public, maybe things would be all right. That would give her almost two weeks to come up with a plan. Hey, maybe she could set Shapiro up with an online dating profile. By the time January hits, he could have a nice biker boyfriend. Then he wouldn't care about Cat and Andre at all!

Monday hadn't been too bad until the end of it.

In Improv, Sikowitz had paired Andre up with Beck for a scene, so he hadn't been able to interact with Cat very much. Shapiro bought her an extra soda at lunch, which was very cool. Cat and Andre were mysteriously absent, but only she and Beck had seemed to notice. Vega drooped about into her pizza – probably still sad about her dumb boyfriend – as Shapiro worked on correcting Jade's Geometry homework.

In her head, Jade composed his Hearts and Handcuffs profile. She wondered if she could Photoshop a leather jacket onto him. She frowned at him critically. Maybe get rid of those awful glasses, too. Everyone always fawned over Tori, but you know – his cheekbones weren't bad, either.

Not that she'd ever admit that aloud.

After school, heading to Shapiro's car with him, she'd turned her head to see Cat across the parking lot, holding Andre's hand as they walked to her own car. Cat leaned into him briefly, and Andre smiled down at her before opening her car door for her. He kissed her on the cheek.

_On the cheek!_

Oh god, so that was happening!

Jade made a wild noise of rage, and Shapiro started to turn his head in alarm. "What's wrong?" he'd squawked. She shoved him violently – in part because she didn't want him to see, and because she also missed hitting him a bit. Shapiro flailed and fell into some shrubbery. "My groin!" he hollered.

"Sorry," Jade said, not very sorry, and also mortified because Shapiro had just said the word 'groin.' "There was – a bee. Aren't you allergic? I was looking out for you."

Shapiro looked annoyed and confused from the bushes. "I'm – not allergic," he told her. "But, um, thanks, I guess?" He'd pulled himself up from the shrubs (he had twigs in his hair). Another glance to the left as Shapiro dusted himself off showed her Cat and Andre pulling out of the parking lot.

"How's your package?" Jade had asked, relaxing, and leered at him. Shapiro blanched and covered himself with his hands, like she was going to unzip his pants to _inspect_ him or something.

"Fine!" he squeaked.

"I really doubt anyone would describe that part of you as _fine_," Jade said sweetly, and he glowered at her a bit, which made her slightly happy. "Well, come on then – I'm fucking hungry! I want to go to Chili My Bowl."

"Where on earth are you going to find someone nice enough to take you _there?_" Shapiro asked, also sweetly, and Jade glowered back at him darkly before turning and heading to his car without looking back to see if he would follow her.

He had.

That had been yesterday, Monday, and now - well, now he knew anyway. She wondered if she should make him a dating profile anyhow.

* * *

She snags Vega by her purse strap as the girl breezes past her, heading towards the cafeteria. Tori squeaks out in alarm, almost falling down onto her back, and she flails a bit as she catches her balance. God, no rhythm at all!

"Jade!" she gasps, hair flying into her face. "You – how – where did you even _come_ from?"

"Shut up," Jade retorts automatically, instantly annoyed. Vega frowns. Jade demands: "Have you seen Cat and Andre?"

Tori makes one of her annoying faces. "No, not yet," she says. "Um … why?"

"Well, they're like, together now or something - "

Vega stares dumbly, so Jade elaborates: "Like,_ dating _- "

"Ohmygod, really?" Tori gasps, briefly transforming into a _gigantic cartoon heart_.

God help her.

Jade snarls very much. "_Yes,_" she grits out. "Dating. Kissing. _Holding hands! _And meanwhile, our buddy Shapiro looks like he just watched his parents dragged away in chains to the Krakow ghetto."

Tori's face scrunches up in confusion, then she takes a moment to be horrified at her. "Jeez, Jade!" she squeals out. "You can't _say _things like – oh god, wait. Oh, crap. Oh, _Robbie_!" She looks stricken.

"Yep," says Jade.

"Wait, so he still likes - ? Oh, chizz. Oh, man."

"Yep," says Jade.

Vega frowns all over the place. "Jeez, is he okay?"

Jade shrugs. "Dunno."

Vega frowns some more. "Well, haven't you talked to him? When did this happen? Did he say anything? Did you talk to him?"

"Jesus, what am I, his _keeper?_" Jade snarls. "Look, I'm just warning you so you'll know what's going on in case Shapiro sticks a pen in his own eye or some shit."

"Okay," says Tori slowly, still looking like an ugly stork with her brows drawn down low. "Well … okay. Thanks, Jade. Man! I can't believe this! I feel like I don't know anything about anything!"

Jade smiles a tiny bit, and pushes past Vega to lead them into the cafeteria. "Well, at least you finally admit that. Now we can work on you getting some help."

Tori squawks, then makes another weird frustrated sound, following after Jade. She and Vega get their food from the lunch truck, and they head out to the courtyard in relative silence – they aren't walking _together_ or anything, just so you know, Jesus Christ! – and take pause just past the doors, looking for the carnage of the unloved Robbie.

Tori – wait for it – frowns. "_Where_ is Beck?" she cries, once they spy Shapiro sitting all by himself in a little puddle of sorrow. That stupid puppet of his droops beside him. "He should be with Robbie!"

(That's the consensus of a lot of underclassmen fangirls, too – that Beck should be with Robbie. Jade nicely doesn't point this out.)

"I texted him about Cat and Andre," Jade tells her. "He ran to LA. He's getting a watermelon."

Tori – wait for it – looks confused. "What? Why?"

Jade shrugs. God, Vega is so dense. "Robbie loves watermelon," she says simply.

"Oh," says Vega in slow understanding. "Um. Well … okay. I don't really think … I mean, is fruit going to help?"

"Doubt it," Jade says, and starts walking towards their table. "Boys are stupid."

"Yeah," says Tori. They fall silent again as they reach the little table and they both stand there for a moment, looking at Robbie, who doesn't notice them in his distress.

Tori moves first. "Hey Robbie," she says gently, taking a seat on the bench beside him, sounding like she's talking to a little kitten or something. Gross.

Jade grunts, sitting down across from them.

"Hi Tori," says Shapiro into the table.

Jade stabs at her salad. Vega makes stilted conversation, peppering Shapiro with questions about the history test they're about to take and asking how Rex is doing (god, Jade fucking hates that thing). Shapiro mutters back. Jade picks the chicken out of her salad and feels – sort of angry, a little sad.

About midway through the period, Tori cracks. "Robbie?" she asks, her voice still all soft and soothing, like she's Sleeping Beauty singing to some little woodland creatures. "Are you all right?"

Jade stabs at her salad again with much force. She feels something cold and green twist around her intestines. She can't ever – she could never make her voice sound like Vega's – _gentle_, like that. It just makes her feel shitty, you know? All she can do is scream about abscesses. She's no good.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Shapiro mutters into the tabletop, maybe being flippant, maybe just being a huge dork.

Tori's brows swoop low on her forehead once more in concern. "You know," she says carefully. "The _Cat_ thing."

Oh lord, she's mentioned her by name!

"What Cat thing?" Shapiro asks speculatively.

Jade cannot help herself. She cannot be a good person ever. "Oh, come on!" she says. "Everyone knows you've got your chastity belt all cinched up for her."

"_Jade!_" cries Tori in despair as Shapiro flushes greatly.

"I do – I totally do not have a chastity belt," he mutters.

Well, Christ. They can't get to the root of the problem if Shapiro won't even fucking acknowledge it, can they? "We all know how many times you asked her to Vega's stupid dance last year," she informs him.

"Hey!" squawks Vega, like_ settle down_, she should be happy – this is the first time Jade's mentioned her stupid Prome without trying to physically attack her afterwards. She is getting _better_. She is containing herself, because Shapiro needs her to.

Sort of containing herself, at any rate.

Meekly, Robbie asks, "You do?"

Tori smiles apologetically. "Robbie, we're girls," she informs him gently. "We kinda tell each other all."

Except not. Except completely not. Kudos, Vega.

Shapiro continues to be miserable.

Vega continues to be annoying.

Jade eats her lunch.

* * *

After school, she's milling out by the parking lot, waiting for Shapiro, who's her ride home. She's hoping he hasn't strangled himself with a light cord or something. She's about to turn back into the school to go and look for him when suddenly Beck sidles up beside her.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," she says, and then they just sort of stare at each other awkwardly. She really has no idea what to say to him or why he's here, so she just asks: "So. Did you – get your watermelon?"

"Um, yeah," says Beck, and then looks pensive. "He didn't even eat it! I think he gave it to some sophomores." He adds darkly, "I saw Sikowitz carrying around a rind."

Jade manages not to smirk. "Times is hard, boy," she says.

Beck smiles a little. "Yeah."

Jade crosses her arms a little uncomfortably, moving over slightly to lean against one of the beams supporting the school's awning. "_Great job_ talking to Cat and Andre, by the way," she drawls out.

Beck squawks. "Hey, I mean, I tried! I did my best!"

Jade breathes out hard through her nose in some approximation of a snort. "What'd you say to them, anyway?"

"I mean, you know me," says Beck. "I'm the king of composure." Jade raises her eyebrows, waiting, and Beck grins abashedly. "I basically babbled incoherently for like four minutes, then grabbed Andre and shrieked 'SHOW SOME DISCRETION' in his face. It was good, I think."

Jade laughs despite herself. They both turn a little as they hear the doors behind them open once more – it's ten minutes to three, and mostly everyone who can be out of the school already is – and watch as Shapiro pushes his way out from them. He takes note of the two standing there looking and starts over, holding his watermelon under one arm and his puppet under the other.

Beck beams beatifically. "Robbie, you kept it!" he says glowingly.

Shapiro stares at him in confusion, then looks down at his arm holding the watermelon. "Of course I kept it," he says. "Why would I get rid of it? I'm going to eat it!"

Beck preens a little. Jade rolls her eyes very hard. They are so fucking weird, she can't take it sometimes. She says, "Oliver thought you gave it away to some underclassmen in sorrow. He saw Sikowitz with a melon rind."

"Oh," says Robbie. He frowns. He asks Beck, "Why would I ever give away something you gave me?"

They look at each other lovingly.

"Are you guys going to kiss now?" Jade asks. "I think that would actually solve everyone's problem."

The boys look at her dourly.

Beck decides not to say anything off-color back. He asks, "Do you guys want to go out to eat tonight?"

"Puke," says Jade.

Shapiro is starting to look like a distressed zombie again – Jade guesses that the healing powers of water-based fruit can only last for so long. "I don't know," he says hesitantly.

Beck tries out a pout and a hair flip on them. Neither of those things work on Jade anymore, though Shapiro seems substantially moved. "Please?" he asks. "That's what I really came to ask you, Jade. We probably won't get to all be together until after Christmas."

"Do we all _want_ to be together?" Jade asks of him, as Shapiro droops about beside her.

Beck purses his lips. "I mean, I don't know," he says. "I'd like us to. You guys are all my friends, even though - " he pauses to look over at Robbie - "well. Yeah. I've hardly seen you guys in months. I mean, Tori has already said yes."

Jade rolls her eyes. "Wonderful."

Beck hesitates, still eyeing the wilted dandelion that is Robbie Shapiro warily. "I could," he says, "I mean, I could just not invite … _them._"

Jade bites her lip as to not say anything rude / sarcastic / uncouth.

Shapiro wilts some more. He says, "You can say their names, Beck."

Beck looks hesitant about saying their names. Robbie continues: "I mean, it isn't a big deal. Really," he says to the ground. "You can ask Cat and – and Andre too. And I guess, I guess I'll go. If Jade wants to."

Beck whirls around to assault Jade with huge disgusting puppy eyes. She glowers at him for as long as she can, then snits, "Oh, fine."

Beck beams glowingly, which irritates her very much. She's sick of standing around here talking to him! "So," she says loudly, "can we go now, Shapiro?"

"Sure," Shapiro says, and then doesn't move from where he's dejectedly standing with his watermelon.

Beck floats over to place his hand gently on Robbie's shoulder. "Rob-Man," he starts gently, in an imitation of Vega's _here-now-little-kitty voice_. Robbie looks very chagrined to hear it, so Jade interrupts loudly to declare, "I am having my period. Can we please go? I need to change my tampon. Like, twenty minutes ago."

The boys wince, and Shapiro takes time away from being heartbroken long enough to look scandalized at her. "I hope you are being sarcastic, Jade," he says, and starts to walk down the steps toward the parking lot. "Haven't you ever heard of toxic shock syndrome? Septic shock!"

Jade snorts and starts to follow him, lifting her hand a little to wave at Beck, then changes her mind. He can text her later with the details if he really wants them to hang out. To Robbie, she says, "You idiot, no one gets that anymore."

"_No one_ gets septic infections anymore?" Shapiro asks severely. He makes a motion like he wants to push his glasses up his nose, but both his hands are occupied with the stupid watermelon and puppet, so he just shrugs his shoulders and makes an ugly squinting face at her.

He continues: "Oh, I assure you they do, Jade Ottelia West." _OH MY GOD! SHAPIRO, THEY'RE IN PUBLIC!_ "Actually, you really shouldn't be wearing tampons at all. They have been known to - "

"Shapiro," she interrupts dryly, "if we ever fuck – and note that that will likely never happen – then, and only then, can you dictate what I can and can't put in my vagina."

Robbie squeaks indignantly. From somewhere behind them, Beck makes a weird noise too.

**AN: So I still don't have Nick – Comcast is coming soon – but I watched the last two Victorious episodes online, and I had to add the watermelon part, because _omg Beck and Robbie are BFFs just like I want them to be._ Still despairing over everything else on the show, including Tori's weird middle-parted hair.**

**My favorite part of this was the last scene. What about you guys?**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

For some reason, she's at St. Anna's again.

There's no reason for her to be here now – she is seventeen, and _not a baby_ – but she is here regardless. One of the aides is leading her down the hallway. The classrooms with their open doors smell like woodchips and chalk. She's going to see Mom.

What is she saying? She isn't seventeen. She can't even _imagine_ being seventeen. That's ancient. That's practically a grown-up, practically dead! She is eight years old. She's been at the group home for twenty-four days, she doesn't even have her own room here, and she's going to see her mother.

It's a little bit rainy out today, damp and overcast, but they go outside to sit anyway, because Mom wants to smoke. Jade watches as the aide's face – Sister Renee, but she lets them call her Renee – turns disapproving, and wishes she wouldn't.

She flings herself at her mother regardless. Mom's ribs and arms feel very thin against her, very sharp. The word she will think later: fragile. She smells like smoke, nail polish, and soap, altogether a familiar combination. Jade's been at the placement home for three weeks, and it's the second time Mom had been to see her since she's been taken away.

"How you doing, baby?" Mom asks into her hair, and Jade lets herself sink into it.

"The food here sucks," Jade says. Mom's sweater is real scratchy. It used to belong to Pop-Pop, Jade's grandfather.

Mom laughs a little, the sound rising out of her like a melody. "I hear you, girly," she says. "Are you _okay_, baby?"

She is not okay. She is wearing a_ tartan_ skirt. Her hair is in a _ponytail_. But she just says, "I guess so."

Mom pets the ponytail. Her fingers feel nice and familiar in her hair. She says, "I got a new place, baby. I'm gonna get you real soon."

Jade asks, "Does the sink actually work?"

Mom laughs again, pulling away to look at her. "Yeah," she says. Her eyes – very blue, like Jade's – look big and a bit bloodshot in her gaunt face. She's very pale, like Jade. She grins. "There's even a _stove_, babe."

Jade sits on the bench beside her. She can't bring herself to laugh like Mom probably wants her to. She doesn't really care if there is a stove or a sink or whatever. "Is there a toaster?" she asks. All she really needs are Poptarts, and her mom.

"I'll get one," Mom says, still playing with the ponytail. She asks her, "Are you making any friends here?"

What does that matter? It's not she _staying_ for much longer. Jade scowls a lot, crossing her arms. "No," she says. "The girls here don't like me. One of 'em pulled my hair yesterday."

Mom flips her ponytail. "Probably because it's so pretty, baby."

Jade grunts.

"This isn't forever, babe," Mom says. Again, she tells her: "I'm gonna get you real soon."

Jade feels impossibly tiny. _You already said that._ Mom isn't coming to pick her up today – she's known that, but it doesn't mean she likes it. "It really sucks here, Mom."

"I know, baby," Mom says. "It sucks where I am, too. I miss my girl, ya know?"

"Yeah," says Jade.

Mom scratches at her arms through the sweater, eliciting another disapproving look from Sister Renee. Since the moment Jade has walked outside and seen Mom, seen her eyes – well, it's very clear to her that Mom is _on _something. Can't she control herself? Can't she stop for two seconds? She wonders if Renee knows.

Mom plays with Jade's hair some more and talks at her, telling her about household appliances and the new guy she's met – _great!_ – and all of the fines she has to pay. Jade listens and she feels very alone. She doesn't want Mom to go, but Mom is always leaving her anyway. She wants to scream and scream. She will scream, later.

Then her eyes open and she isn't outside the placement home anymore, it isn't raining, _she is not an orphan_, and Mom's thin face flashes before her eyes and disappears. She's been dreaming. _You left me._

Jade lays in the bed and thinks, eyes open and looking up at the dark ceiling. She doesn't know why her heart is pounding so very hard.

It is the day after Christmas, and she's in a spare bedroom at Uncle Richard's fancy huge house, where they've come to spend the holiday as usual. Everything is quiet. She reaches over – feels her PearPhone on her pillow beside her. She checks the time. It's just past three. _It's three am, I must be lonely._ Below her, on the floor, she can hear Jefferson's wheezy little sleep-noises as he dreams with the unburdened sleep of little kids who have two parents that love him, have a sink and a stove _and_ a toaster in their kitchens.

She feels a wild rush of protectiveness course through her as she listens to her brother snore. She doesn't know what to do about that.

She doesn't feel the way she does about Jeff towards anyone else. Earlier, after dinner, they'd eaten a whole chocolate souffle together, laughing and kicking each other under the table (the uncles had looked appalled, coming in and out of the room with their drinks). Jeff had had chocolate all over his face. At the end of the table, Dad had been with them, reading a paper.

She is okay. She is not at St. Anna's. That was a long time ago.

A lot has been happening over the past few days. It's so late – or it's so early – she doesn't really have anything to do but think of it, so she lets herself.

* * *

Shapiro had driven her home on Tuesday.

At least she's mildly succeeded in distracting him from the subject of Cat/Andre, though now he was crabbing at her about her choice of feminine hygiene products. She'd put a stop to it as he rounded in on the eighth minute of lecturing, though.

"Would you _settle_?" she demands, as he starts to make the turn off the highway, into her neighborhood. "I'm not even having my period. I just wanted to get away from Beck."

Robbie blinks owlishly at the road. "You couldn't have picked a more appropriate topic?" he asks.

Jade smiles sweetly. "That's the quickest one to get him away," she says. Robbie rolls his eyes – _boys!_

At her house, Jade moves through the hallways, picking up Dad's discarded sweaters as Shapiro nicely goes into the kitchen to make her her afternoon pot of coffee (such a good dog!). He takes pause to stare at her with raised eyebrows as she comes into the room, holding the huge pile of sweaters.

Jade goes past him to dump them into the laundry room. They're all wrinkled, so Sophia will have to rewash them. The last time Dad had done the wash everything had came out infant-sized. Jade had been very happy.

"My dad had a, like, big meeting today," Jade tells Shapiro graciously. "He couldn't figure out what to wear. Jeff helped him."

"Oh yeah?" says Shapiro, moving to turn the coffee machine on. Jade swoops out to glower at him warily.

"How much did you put in there?" she demands, jerking her chin up towards the machine.

Shapiro shakes the coffee tin at her. "Like, half the grinds. That's enough, right?"

Jade considers. She needs her coffee really strong. "How many cups are you making with it?"

"Three?" Shapiro asks hesitantly.

Jade purses her lips. "I guess that's okay." She moves back into the laundry room, takes Jeff's pirate costume out of the dryer.

When she comes back out, Shapiro is sitting at the counter, drooping a little, looking like he's beginning to become depressed about Cat and Andre again, which is annoying.

He watches as she moves to the cabinet to remove a mug for herself. Thank God Sophia has run the dishwasher earlier! She pulls her Night of the Living Dead mug out with relish. She considers Shapiro for a moment, then nicely pulls out another cup for him, too. His has Cinderella on it.

Shapiro looks at the differing mugs dourly, then raises his eyes to her. "Do I get coffee?" he asks.

"Yeah right," Jade tells him, appalled. Hello, he just said he was only making _three cups!_ "You get tea." She shoves Sophia's basket of fancy teas towards him. "Pick out what you want." She slams Dad's kettle onto the stove.

Robbie digs through the tea basket and looks hesitant, trying to decide between peppermint and jasmine-vanilla. What would a Disney princess want? Jade imagines him questioning, and grins towards the coffee pot.

"So did you - " Shapiro starts and falls silent, swirling a random teabag absently. "Did you know about – about Cat?" His voice falters at the end, which makes her feel bad.

She hates feeling bad, you know.

"I guess so," she grunts. God, she hates talking about it! Is this all they're going to talk about for the remainder of forever? Life sucks.

"Oh," says Shapiro in great sorrow.

"Well, I didn't _know_ know," Jade elaborates. "I only knew a little."

"Oh," says Shapiro, still in great sorrow.

There's a loud_ bang!_ as the front door closes and a moment later Jefferson comes shuffling into the kitchen, holding his bookbag and what Jade thinks is supposed to be a paper-mache Christmas elf. His hair is sticking up everywhere – he looks like a damn hedgehog. He studiously sets the elf on the kitchen table, then comes around to stare at them speculatively.

"Why do you have a watermelon?" he asks.

Shapiro puts his arm protectively around the melon, which is on the counter beside him, and looks depressed some more. Jade says, "Because no one loves Robbie."

"Oh," says Jeff.

"Yup," says Robbie, and looks more depressed.

"Well, _I_ love you," Jeff tells him nicely.

Shapiro looks affected. "Thanks, Jeff," he says. "Do you want to eat the watermelon with me?"

Jeff gazes at it, considering. "I guess so," he says, and hops up on the counter beside him. He and Robbie look at Jade expectantly.

Jade glowers for a moment, then goes to the counter by the sink to pull a large kitchen knife out of the drawer for Shapiro to carve his melon with (does that sound dirty? She doesn't even know anymore. Since she's been hanging out with Robbie, she's been getting sort of rusty).

Shapiro cuts the huge watermelon in half and looks affected some more. "Oh," he says. "It's _seedless_. That's so sweet."

Jade rolls her eyes.

Shapiro gets spoons for himself and Jeff and they sit there at the counter in relative silence, scooping out sections of the melon like they're eating bowls of cereal. Jade watches them and drinks her coffee. She guesses all boys are weird.

* * *

At Nozu, everyone is there – Beck and Alison, Cat and Andre. Vega swoops in a few minutes late, looking ridiculous for some reason in an oversized black hoodie, Trina's visor from Groovy Smoothie, and a pair of idiotic wraparound black sunglasses. She is the weirdest person alive.

Jade looks hesitantly over towards Cat and Andre at one end of the table – Shapiro is staring resolutely at the ground – and finally chooses her seat at the opposite end, next to Robbie. This puts her directly across from Beck and Alison, which blows, but whatever, sometimes sacrifices must be made.

She is – not exactly proud of the events that transpire. What follows is not exactly a shining example of her poise and composure.

Cat beams at her from across the table. Jade smiles back weakly, to be nice. She steals some of Beck's iced tea - he squawks briefly, but lets her. Alison appears unconcerned.

They sure are together a lot for people who aren't dating.

At the other end of the table, Cat giggles merrily at something Andre's said, and Jade looks over to see him smile at her in a rather sickeningly besotted fashion. Beside her, Robbie slumps ever lower in his chair.

They really don't care. They really don't notice.

She, Beck, even Alison, and maybe Vega (Jade can't really tell with the stupid sunglasses) exchange a fourway look of concern.

Shapiro stares determinedly at the menu and squeaks sadly over a salmon entree. It has goat cheese on it. "Can I eat that?" he asks Jade, still in the throes of a great sadness. He shouldn't be – she'd let him have three cups of tea! He'd even been allowed to use Dad's fancy honey. And he'd eaten that stupid melon. Wasn't that enough to cheer him up?

For some reason, Beck is looking at them kind of oddly, which irritates her. "Yes, you can eat that," Jade informs him crisply. "It probably won't taste very good. I hope you get it and it doesn't taste very good." There's no need to coddle the boy just because he is unloved!

Cat – rather loudly, she thinks –refers to Andre as _Brownie Bear_. Jade drinks her soda very fast in mortification. Beck looks like he finds the term to be borderline offensive. Shapiro withers some more - he's like that dying rose in Beauty and the Beast, more and more petals falling off of him as love neglects to find him. Alison watches everyone's faces with interest. Tori – well, who cares?

They get through their meals without very much incident. Jade splits the biggest sushi platter with Beck and Alison. Wisely, they allow her all the California rolls. Even still, throughout the dinner, Jade can just – feel her irritation growing. Why had she agreed to come to this stupid thing?

She'd like to breeze out as soon as the last sushi roll is eaten, but of course stupid Beck wants dessert – Vincent Price, curse him and his bottomless stomach! – and of course Cat does too. Jade watches as Shapiro wilts all over everything. He doesn't want to be here, either.

Her resolution cracks when Cat feeds Andre the cherry from her sundae, giggling all the while. Beck looks scandalized – or, you know, mildly perturbed, like a cat who's been thrown in a water puddle, whichever you prefer. Tori makes a small high sound. Shapiro sinks impossibly lower in his chair. If he wilts any further, he'll be in the basement.

She can't. She really can't.

She's going to say something.

She doesn't want to say something.

She doesn't want to care about Puppet Boy's feelings and she wants Cat to care about them. Doesn't anyone care about what she wants? No, they're all too busy with their ice cream.

Jade stands abruptly, knocking Shapiro with her chair as she pulls out from the table in her haste to be_ away_. "I'm out of here," she announces to no one, and starts heading out of the restaurant before she grabs up a fork and spears the whole building with it.

From behind her, she hears Cat squeal, "Jade! What's wrong with Jade?"

Beck warns, "Yeah, probably shouldn't do ..." but then she's out of hearing range anyway.

She's just made it to the exit door when she feels small hands clutch at the hem of her sweater, and she knows it's Cat before she even turns around. "Jade, what's the matter?" the girl asks, all concerned and idiotic, as she always is. "Are you – are you upset because Beck brought a date?"

Oh my God. How can she not know? Does she really not know? She hadn't figured Cat to be so dense.

"You are," Jade says, turning slowly, "such a class act."

Oh, great, Andre's standing right beside her, and Robbie too! The whole wonky brigade is here.

Cat bites her lip in confusion, unconsciously moving an inch closer to Andre. "What do you mean?" she asks in her endlessly airy voice. Slightly behind them, Robbie continues to look like a confused and dying dandelion.

"God, you idiot!" Jade bursts out, unable to stop it. "Did your hair dye finally seep into your brain, or are you really just that stupid?"

"Hey now," Andre says hesitantly, coming to his lady's aide like some sort of ridiculous black knight (see? She can be borderline offensive too, damnit!). Jade silences him with a single murderous glance.

"Oh, shut up Harris," she snarls. "You aren't too good in my book right now either."

Andre frowns like he doesn't understand what she's talking about. Jade moves again to look at Cat. "So?" she demands. "Which is it – are you actually stupid, or just pretending?"

Cat's eyes are wide and scared. "I don't … I don't know what you mean," she squeaks out.

Oh, of course she doesn't. Cat never knows what anything means, does she?

Jade cannot stop herself.

"You think you can just treat people however you want," she tells the redhead. "You act all mad at Shapiro - " Cat will still not stop caterwauling about how Robbie's laughed at her singing Tiny Dancer the wrong way – "and then you run off to Harris." Cat frowns. "You can't say it to his face?"

Shapiro blanches. I don't want her to say it to my face, his eyes say.

Jade continues: "You must like keeping him on a leash. Back and forth. What, you think he's your _backup_ or something? We fucking _talked _about this already!" Well, they sort of had, hadn't they? In her head, they'd been much more coherent about it, and it had gone well. "Then we all have to sit and watch you and Harris fucking smooch all over each other. It's pathetic. And, and – then you think I want to pick up the phone and hear about your shitty goddamn dates?"

Cat's eyes have been growing bigger and bigger, and now they shine bright with unspilled tears. She manages, "I don't think..."

"Yeah, you don't think," Jade interrupts her coldly. Another couple, heading to the door to leave, pauses a few feet away to send them scared and wary looks, then turn quickly to exit through the side doors. "You've got a million guys after you and you pick one in our little group." She says coldly, "I can't see how you didn't do it on purpose."

Two tears spill over. "Do _what_ on purpose?" Cat cries, like, _Jesus fucking Christ, what does she think they are talking about?_

Oh, well, Cat really wouldn't know, would she? She doesn't see Shapiro as anything. She recalls, months ago, Cat squealing out her drawn-out 'e_wwww_' with four w's. And Jade had – Jade had thought it was _funny_!

That had been before, though – before Shapiro had started coming over every day and taking her stupid brother to the comic book store and buying stamps and envelopes for her parking tickets and helping her get a B+ on her math test. Before he'd infiltrated her life and set about ruining things.

"Did you fucking hear _anything_ I just said?" Jade demands of Cat. "Why don't you go home, listen to some Disney tunes, and think it over."

She is so done. She whirls around, slams the door to Nozu open, and storms off into the parking lot. Behind her, she hears Cat begin to cry in earnest before the door slams shut again. Done!

Everyone else isn't done, of course. They will never be done.

Jade loiters at the end of the parking lot, smoking her last cigarette, and watches as Robbie rushes out towards her. He stops abruptly about five feet from her, and just stands there, thrumming with energy, which is a sight to see. Here it comes, she thinks, watching Shapiro's thin chest puff out as he draws in a breath.

"Jade!" he cries. "What is _wrong_ with you? Why – why did you _say _all that stuff to her?"

Jade looks at him impassively. She flicks some of her cigarette ash to the ground. He wants to know _why?_ "You certainly weren't going to," she drawls.

This apparently upsets him. "It isn't your_ business,_" he tells her. Oh, no, it isn't her business when she has to see and interact with him every day, with Cat as her best friend, and he just looks like a hand grenade's blown up on him because of her! "I'm not a baby! I don't need you sticking up for me!"

She feels the strong and rather absurd need to holler at him, _YOU ARE THE __**BIGGEST BABY!**_like he's Jefferson or something, mad because she won't let him stay up late to watch South Park. She says, "Oh, trust me, I'm not."

Shapiro vibrates with anger some more. How rich, he's mad at _her._ "So what are you doing?" he demands. "Treating Cat like crap? She's your only friend! You want to run her away, too?"

Jade glowers back very hard. "Watch it, Shapiro," she growls out.

"_You_ watch it!" Shapiro squeals. "That was really horrible, Jade!" He asks the question of the ages: "Why are you so _mean_ to everyone?"

"Because _people suck_," Jade snarls at him, and the anger in her voice makes him take a step back, looking at her warily. She jabs a finger at his scrawny chest. She yells, "What're you getting mad at _me_ for? _I'm_ the asshole? Cat and Andre don't give two shits about your feelings! They're skipping around holding hands and you can't say a goddamn thing to them! _Excuse me_ for caring on your behalf. Just yell at me instead, Shapiro!"

Shapiro looks at her in disbelief. "That was you_ caring_?" he cries out. "Cat was _crying!_ And, and you certainly didn't help _me_ any!"

He says, "God, no wonder Beck broke up with you."

Jade stares at him mutedly, feeling murderous. Shapiro draws back another step, looking appalled at himself, like he can't believe he's said it. He bites his lip.

Well, now she knows what he really thinks, doesn't she? She'd been stupid enough to think he could see through that, that he'd been on her side. He's just been pitying her this whole time, for being so horrible.

She doesn't know why she feels so wildly disappointed in him, or why it surprises her so much. She guesses – she guesses she'd thought he'd _known_ better. That he'd known her better.

"You're even stupider than I thought," she says finally, and throws her cigarette at him and whirls away, heading towards the street.

Shapiro calls out after her, contrite – he's her ride home, but she doesn't stop walking. She is alone, as usual.

**AN: New readers (if there are any, har har) might be a bit confused by the beginning of the chapter? I hope not. I think I've put enough hints into this to show that Jade's mom is absent, and not exactly the best of the best. Ah well, all in good time. Rereading this to edit, I find the end of the chapter to be a bit sad, especially when related to the beginning.**

**Sigh. Remember when I said this wouldn't be as long as TYSW? Oh well.**


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

That had been the worst part, Jade guesses, but not the most important.

The night air had been cold and damp as she meandered down to the end of Main Street. It's California, yeah – but it was December, after all.

She leaned against a streetlamp at a cross section further down the road. The buildings at this end were smaller, mostly day-shops like the post office and convenience stores, and there were far less teenagers milling about here, laughing and bothering her. She stayed there for a moment, letting herself collect her thoughts. She would not think of Cat or Robbie - or _Shapiro_. Instead, she thought sadly of her purse, left behind at Nozu. Well, not like there was much money in that, anyway. Oh, but her new eyeshadow, left in the side pocket. Chizz.

Jade pursed her lips. How the hell was she going to get home?

She felt the comforting weight of her PearPhone against her dress pocket. Thank god she'd worn that, and not the dark purple sweater Cat had let her borrow earlier in the week. She pulled out the phone, looked at it in consideration. It was only just past seven. Really? It felt as if she had been trapped at Nozu for roughly ten hours.

Who to call? Jade snorts at the thought of Dad's minivan careen through cramped LA streets as he peered owlishly into the night, trying to locate her. Sophia would get her, and not have a panic attack over the impending four-way stop signs, but she would ask questions, and might scowl at having to drive again after finally coming home from work. All of her friends are – well. What friends?

She calls Cat's brother, because she knows he works in LA during the week, and he might be finished or finishing soon. Mike answers with a pleasant little grunt.

"Are you still working?" she asks him.

"I just got off," Mike says, and – people, she really hopes he's talking about his job. Mike is weird, yanno. "I haven't left yet. What's up?"

"Can you give me a ride?" She doesn't mean for her voice to sound small. Maybe it's only in her head, because – she would _never_ sound that way.

There's a bit of silence for a moment, then Michael says, "Yeah, I guess so. Where're you? Oh, and I don't have a passenger seat anymore."

Well. Okay.

It only takes Mike about another five minutes to get her. She's pretty sure that, obeying traffic laws, the butcher shop that he works at is way more than five minutes away, but hey, who is she to say anything? She's No Car Insurance Girl. And wow, his van really does not have a passenger chair any longer. Mike stares at her as she crosses the street and opens the door, then slides to the van's floor below him where the seat had once been.

Mike's hair is green and purple – the green is new; she hasn't seen him in a few days – and she guesses he's still got his mohawk cut, but it isn't spiked now, just combed to the left, and the side of his scalp that's exposed to her is shiny and pale. He's got a new tattoo there. Something in – possibly – Russian?

Cat's mom is Irish and Welsh. Their father is half Mexican, half Russian. It's weird. Mr. Valentine always looks very severe to her, though he is usually laughing.

"Where's Freaker?" Mike grunts. Freaker is his sweet little nickname for Cat.

"She's still at the restaurant. We're sort of fighting," Jade tells him from the floor.

Michael looks impartial, which Jade is thankful for. He grunts a little and sets the van to drive (she hears it backfire slightly as they pull away from the curb). "How's she getting home?"

"She has a car, you idiot!" Jade reminds him. Michael grunts again, remembering. Jade can't help herself from adding nastily, "She's probably going to drive her _boyfriend_ home too."

Mike looks briefly murderous. He scratches at his face. "What boyfriend?" he grunts.

"Ask _her_."

They're stuck at a red light, and Mike takes pause to grin over / down at her. "You jealous?" he drawls, smirking horribly.

"_No_," Jade says sulkily.

Mike makes an impassive noise, then turns up the van's stereo. Jade watches the rings glitter on his fingers as he does so. Mike has tattoos on his knuckles that say 'Take Care' (sometimes he takes Cat and Jade to concerts with him, and people think she and Mike are a _couple!_ Disgusting. Just because they share hair dye! Other people don't know that Mike drools in his sleep and thinks it's hilarious to sneak into Cat's room when she and Jade are having sleepovers and steal their discarded clothes and then walk around in their bras all the next morning, cackling into his orange juice). Anyway, he'd taken _much care _when he'd bashed in some guy's face last year in Pasadena for tearing Cat's shirtsleeve off. He'd had to pay a lot of fines for that, and now none of them were allowed back in that club.

"What's your head say?" Jade asks him now.

He grunts again. "Illumination."

"Cool," she says, mollified.

Michael drives her home and on the way, he makes her listen to a band called Kincaide. Michael usually listens to good music. She likes the piano in some of the songs. It accentuates the screaming nicely. She makes a plan to sneak into his room later and steal the CD.

"So if Freaker doesn't come home tonight," Mike grunts, "what's this guy's address?"

Jade thinks of Mike 'taking care' with Andre. Andre is being a jerk right now, but still, she doesn't know if she wants to allow this to happen. "Don't worry about it," she says. "He's all right." Mike grunts once more.

Dad looks mildly upset when she comes in, having heard the backfiring of Mike's van. "Were you out with Michael?" he asks her, lowering his newspaper. "Where's Caterina? Did she go with you?"

"What's with the thirty questions? GOD!" Jade barks, and storms into the kitchen. Dad looks slightly taken aback, and lowers his head back down to his crossword.

Sophia is at the stove, taking a lasagna out of the oven. "Hello," she says when she hears her footsteps, and then turns and sees Jade's face. "Oh, you're upset. Surprising."

Jade scowls hard. "Who is that for?" she demands, jerking her chin towards the lasagna. It's like the only think Sophia can make fairly well.

"The whole family," Sophia tells her. "Do you want a piece?"

"_No,_" says Jade, and slams herself into a seat at the counter, waiting. Sophia hums and begins to cut a piece off. Once she sets it in front of Jade, she asks, "So what are you angry about?"

Jade, channeling Mike, grunts.

"Oh, I see," says Sophia knowingly. "Did you fight with Beck?"

"_No,_" snarls Jade, and burns her mouth, trying to eat the lasagna too fast.

Sophia hums again. She tries, "Did you fight with Bobby?"

_Bobby!_ Jesus Christ! Well, it's not like she goes around calling Butt-Munch by his first name a lot, she guesses. She doesn't bother to correct Sophia. "No," she grumbles again, stabbing at the noodles with her fork.

"Oh," says Sophia. "Well, okay. It's fine if you don't want to talk about it." She floats back to the stove to begin cleaning up.

Around a mouthful of food, Jade demands, "Why is every single person in the world a complete jerk? Why is every boy a total complete jerk?"

Sophia turns again to look at her, eyebrows raising. "Well -" she says, but Jade cuts her off.

"I mean, you just try to help someone out, and they go all – all _Drew Barrymore_ on your ass, pretending you were never even friends in the first place! What the hell's that about?"

Sophia pauses. "I don't understand that reference," she says.

"You wouldn't," Jade snits darkly, shoveling more lasagna into her mouth. Rage makes her so hungry. "Can I have another piece?"

Sophia preens, going to cut another slice. "Do you like it?"

"You used too much sauce," Jade grunts. Sophia gives her a dour look.

Jade eats her lasagna and crabs nonsensically at her stepmother. Sophia, for her part, listens.

She feels a little bit better after she eats. She's still angry, but – well, she doesn't really know who or what she's angry at anymore. She's also started to feel – you know, pretty guilty.

Cat isn't exactly the best at picking up on context clues. She probably honestly didn't notice how upset Rob – _Shapiro_ was, and she certainly didn't know beforehand that Jade was sort of pissed at her. She hadn't even told Cat to shut up about Andre when she'd talked on the phone for an hour, just let the girl go on. Jade plays their recent conversations out in her head. She really hadn't said much to discourage Cat's behavior, hoping the girl would just pick up on it on her own. She hadn't needed to scream at Cat in front of everyone in LA. She should probably, like, _apologize_ or something.

If Cat will even see her. If Cat's even home yet.

Jade puts her plate in the sink (Sophia is still watching her, so nicely, Jade rinses it off, too). "Do we have, like, any candy or something?" she asks, opening up the cabinet above the sink and rifling through it. "Hey, are these the last Fat Cakes? Where's Jeff?"

"Your brother thinks it's funny to take my new curtains down and wear them as a cape," Sophia informs her. "He's grounded in his room for the rest of the night."

Poor Jeff. Boys just wanna have fun. Jade looks musingly at the near-empty package of Fat Cakes she's holding. "So he won't miss these," she says.

"No," says Sophia slowly, still watching. "Are you still hungry? I thought you were on that no Fat Cake diet?"

Jade snarls. "They aren't for me!" she snits, grabbing them up out of the box. "I'm going to bring them to Cat. I need to talk to her." She pauses, giving Sophia a wary glance. "Am I – like, allowed to go back out?"

Sophia raises an eyebrow. "You can do whatever you'd like, Jade," she says. "I'm not your jailer."

"I'll just _walk_ over," Jade informs her crisply. She hasn't been using her car since the ridiculous banana fight, which Sophia seems to have calmed about, but she doesn't want to, you know, chance things. At the end of the week they'll be going to spent Christmas at Dad's brother's and she'll probably have to deal with Sophia a lot then, so she'd rather the woman not be mad at her.

"All right," Sophia says, still looking at her with those weird hungry eyes – she wants details, probably. "Are you fighting with Cat?"

"Don't worry about it!" Jade bellows, and swoops out of the kitchen, clutching the Fat Cake. Dad frantically scribbles into his crossword as she passes him.

* * *

Jade walks into Cat's room without knocking, as she never does. She supposes she's pretty lucky she's never walked in on Cat naked or, like, with a guy or something – though, once, after midnight, she _had_ came in to find Cat and her brother arm-wrestling over the apparent possession of a raw steak.

"Cat," Jade demands loudly, as the room appears to be empty.

There's a pause. Then, "Yes?" Cat's voice floats out from the closet. Jade rolls her eyes. Oh Christ, this again. She crosses the room and sits down in front of the closet door, which is slightly ajar.

"Can I come in?" she asks. There's another pause, before Cat says, "Yes," once more, and Jade pushes the door further open. She crawls in beside Cat. The closet is big, a walk-in, though it's still really weird that Cat comes here to hide. She's been doing it since she was little, and her parents really don't like it. Jade sits down and waves the Fat Cake in her face.

"Sorry," she grunts.

Cat looks at the Fat Cake mistrustfully, like Jade's laced it with poison or something. The damn thing isn't even open! "For what?" she asks in a small voice. Her mascara is dried all over her face from crying.

Jade feels bad.

"I'm sorry for yelling," she says in a clearer voice. She adds, "Also for cursing."

Cat asks, "Are you still mad at me?"

_A little._ "No," says Jade. "Are you mad at me?" She waves the Fat Cake some more.

Cat takes it hesitantly, and looks sad. "No," she says. "I'd never be mad at you." She pauses. "I'm a jerk, aren't I, Jade?"

_A little._ "No," Jade grunts. "I'm a jerk."

"Well - " Cat pauses nicely. "No, no - you aren't. I am." She looks down at the Fat Cake sadly. The light is much dimmer here in the alcove, and it casts strange shapes on her pale face, making her look very young. "Jade," she says. "If you – I'm – I'm sorry if you didn't want to hear so much about Andre. You should have said before. I, I thought you were happy for me."

Jade grunts once more, and moves to sit Indian-style across from Cat, a more comfortable position. "I _am_ happy," she says crossly. "For you. It just, you know, I guess it sucked to hear about it so much. I mean, I don't think I'm ever going to go out on a date again."

Cat bites her lip and gives Jade a sympathetic glance, but she doesn't try to say anything against this, probably because they have discussed the topic multiple times since the break up with Beck, and it always ends with Jade yelling things like, "ALONE! NOTHINGNESS! BLACK EMPTINESS!"

Instead she says, "Andre told me he saw Robbie yelling at you when we were leaving."

Jade snorts. "Oh, yeah," she says. "Look, Cat – you really need to, like, talk to him or something. Shapiro, I mean. I know you think - " she stops. Well, she really doesn't know what Cat thinks.

Cat looks chagrined. "I know I do," she says. She waves the Fat Cake a little. "Jade, I'm such a jerk! Robbie - I didn't – think he'd look like that! He looked so upset!"

"Yeah," says Jade. Upset is one word for it. Crushed is another. Also, devastated.

"I guess I just … " she trails off. "I didn't want him to look like that. I was ignoring it." She stretches out a little, knocking into Jade's legs with her feet, and pouts a little. She says, "Jade?"

Jade grunts.

"I don't like getting older," Cat says, and pouts. "Everything gets complicated."

Everything has always been complicated. But: "Yeah," says Jade.

"I feel really bad," says Cat. "I don't know why he – I mean ..." She bites her lips again, squeezing the Fat Cake. "I never think of Robbie like that, but he's always been – maybe I should, I should stop seeing Andre. I - " she pauses again. "I know what you were trying to say, at your house last week. And what Beck said to me and Andre." She giggles suddenly. "Actually, you guys said the same thing! That's so weird!"

Jade growls slightly.

Cat continues: "I know I should think about Robbie's feelings. But I didn't want to care. I just … really like Andre, you know?"

Jade makes a noncommittal noise, because – well, she does know, now. She really hadn't thought of how much Cat might actually like Andre, until she'd seen them at their lockers this morning, holding hands. Then it was obvious. And he liked her too, a lot.

"I wasn't even – well, after your house, I told him, we should wait. I wasn't going to go out with him. I did know you didn't want me to upset Robbie." She pauses yet again, biting her lip.

Jade raises an eyebrow, waiting for the impending outburst.

"But then I saw Andre again and he just looked really cute in his striped shirt so I asked him to go on a date!" Cat explodes, eyes bugging out, and Jade can't help but snort. Then Cat says, "I don't know. Maybe I should break up with him. I don't want Robbie to be sad." She looks very distressed.

Jade sighs heavily. "No," she says. "You should do what you want. You can't help it, right?"

Cat continues to look distressed.

"Just – you know – you really need to talk to Shapiro, okay?" Jade tells her.

"Yeah," says Cat dismally. She starts to tear open the corner of the Fat Cake package, then pauses to look over once more. "So what did he say to you?"

Jade regales Shapiro's tantrum to Cat. Cat looks upset. "I am_ not _your only friend," she says. "Wow."

"Yup," says Jade. "I'm a monster, apparently."

Cat opens the Fat Cake package up, getting pink icing all over her hands. "I don't think he really meant any of that," she says. "Robbie never says what he means."

"I guess so," says Jade doubtfully. What does she care, anyway?

"I think that's part of why - " Cat pauses, thinking. "Well, why I never thought of him that way. I never know what he's saying. He's so strange."

"And the universe agrees," Jade says drolly. She also declines to mention that one could probably say the same thing about Cat. "But look – he's not so bad. Remember all that Bibble he bought you last year? And your tiara?"

"Yeah," says Cat, looking sad.

"And you - remember when Tori got sick and he modeled that dress for your design costume class?"

Cat makes a face. "I wish I didn't," she says, and Jade laughs.

"Yeah," she says. "Well, he tries, yanno. So you should at least – I dunno, apologize or something."

"Okay," says Cat, looking thoughtful.

"Because he deserves it," Jade adds. "I mean, at least give it to him straight. I feel bad for the kid. He doesn't know what he's doing. He just – needs so much, help, you know? I don't know what I'm going to do with him."

"Yeah," says Cat. She bites into the Fat Cake, watching Jade with a strange expression.

Jade says, "He's such a freaking jerk, though – seriously. What does he expect, acting like a freaker all the time? He is such a weirdo. I don't think anything can help him! Did you know, yesterday he promised he'd take me to Chili My Bowl, and then he just drove me to the fucking community center and tried to get me a nicotine patch?"

Cat swallows her bite of Fat Cake and hesitates with the treat an inch from her mouth. "He did?" she asks, smiling a little.

"Yes! What kind of boy lies about chili? I really can't stand him." Jade scowls and crosses her arms, almost knocking one of Cat's dresses off the hanger as she does so. "Actually, you know, I just really don't like him at all."

Cat takes another bite of Fat Cake, chewing slowly as she looks at Jade. She makes a weird face, then swallows. "Yeah," she says.

"I don't even smoke that much," Jade says sulkily. "Do I?"

"No," says Cat nicely. She wipes her mouth off, and a slow smile starts to creep up on her face. "Jade?" she says.

Jade immediately feels on-guard. "What?" she snarls.

Cat grins now (she has pink icing in her teeth). "_Jade._"

"Oh Christ! _What?_"

"Jade Ottelia Ophelia Anna _Maria_ West!"

"You - ! What the fuck, Cat, that was like three extra middle names – what the hell?"

Cat throws her head back. A hanger clangs to the floor. "_YOU LIKE ROBBIE!_"

"_WHAT?_" Jade shrieks, disgusted. "What the fuck is wrong with you! You – I do not! Oh my god!"

Cat laughs at her! "Not like that!" she says. She beams some more. "You _care_ about him! You care about Robbie's _feelings!_"

Jade snarls in horror and outrage. "Oh I do _not!_"

Cat just laughs some more and takes another bite of the Fat Cake. "Yes you do," she says, smiling at the Fake Cake like they share a wonderful secret. "I know you guys have been getting closer. You probably know him better than I do!"

"Ew! I do _not!_"

"I saw you take that candy bar away from him last week," Cat says in much glee. "You know he can't eat that. He'd get sick."

"So _what?_"

"And then you fixed his shirt collar!"

Jade says darkly, "It was bothering me."

Cat hums happily. She eats her Fat Cake. She says, "You just care about him_ so much._"

"Shut up, shut up, I hate you so much, I hate him, I _do not._"

Jade scowls. Cat smiles around at everything in a great joy.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

She hadn't stayed at Cat's for much longer once she'd coaxed the girl out of her stupid closet. The sugar was starting to make Cat vibrate with energy, so she'd nicely dumped her off down in her living room, where Mike was watching mixed martial arts on TV.

"Michael, what are you doing home?" Cat squealed, jumping on the couch next to him. "Do you want to hang out?"

Mike grunted in unhappiness. Cat preened, bouncing. The throw pillows on the couch went flying. "Do you want to watch Boogie Bear 2 with me?"

Mike looked murderous.

"I'll get you some juice!" Cat cried. "Did you take your pills? I'll get them! Don't move! Stay there! Wait, set up the DVD player! I'm so happy! You're never home!" She'd fluttered off to the kitchen after tossing the DVD in his lap.

Mike looked stricken.

"Have fun," Jade said sweetly, and then hightailed it home.

* * *

It was nearly nine by the time she'd gotten back to the house – not too late, even considering that they still had school tomorrow. One more stupid day and then two weeks off for Christmas break! Thank God. Sophia was downstairs reading, and the light at the top of the house when Jade had been walking up showed that Dad was now hiding upstairs in his third office. Sophia flutters about after her when she comes in, actually following her up the steps. So fucking nosy!

"Did you speak to Caterina?" she asks, hovering in the doorframe of Jade's bedroom.

"Yeah," says Jade. "It's fine. We're cool."

"Oh, well – that's good." Sophia pauses. "You still look a bit angry."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jade hollers, scowling. She crosses the room to her stereo and puts in Bikini Kill, thinking of Shapiro's stupid stupid face, all pinched up and angry at her. _Care about him so much!_ Yeah right! Now that she and Cat were all right, she could focus on what an _utter idiot_ he was.

Sophia frowns, still hovering. "What is this music?" she asked. "Do you - "

"GET OUT!" Jade yells, and slammed the door. God, everyone just tried to piss her off, didn't they? _What is this music? _You could clearly see what the case said! Sophia was sort of a feminist, wasn't she? She should be more appreciative.

Jade stands in the middle of her room, feeling unsettled, and rather angry for it. She went, as always, for her scissors, kept safely in her bottom desk drawer.

She has a pretty nice collection in her locker at school, stolen from every class ever, but this pair was old and a bit rusty, from Jeff spilling his water on them before. She'd had the pair for a long time, taken from Dad's office before they'd moved to this part of California. Her first pair since Mom's house.

So she had done that - took out her scissors and her papers, and she sat on the floor of her bedroom and cut them up for a while, until the dark tan carpet was littered with hacked shapes of construction paper. She was sure that some people at school speculate that she's a cutter – if only they knew!

When the ream of blue and orange paper is decimated she still doesn't feel much better. What is this feeling?

Her Bikini Kill CD has ended, so she picks herself up from the floor, going to the stereo once more. It's time for some Hole, she thinks. Courtney Love could always make her feel better. Who was an angrier and more messed up person? Who had a stronger voice?

It was a shame the woman was such an unrepentant drug addict. It kept Jade from truly worshiping her. She had very cool guitars, at any rate. And she'd gotten Kurt Cobain to marry her, which says something.

Jade gets her guitar out on her bed and holds it. She isn't too great at guitar – piano was more her thing – but she likes the loudness of them, the distortion they can have. She likes to sit up in her room and play 'Miss World.' Cat has also said Jade looks very bad-ass holding it.

She hasn't gotten very far into her CD when there's a brisk knock at the door, and she knows without anyone speaking that it has to be Shapiro, because he always knocked the same way, four annoying times. She turns off her stereo with the remote and stares blankly at her closed door.

What the hell was he doing here? Wasn't it past his bedtime? Did he really come all this way to yell at her some more?

"Jade?" squeaks Dorkasaur, knocking some more. "It's me. Um. Robbie. It's Robbie."

_Robbie_? You mean _Jerk Hole_? She glowers at the door.

"Can I come in?" Dingbat asks shrilly, not relenting.

Ugh. He just was not picking up on her pointed silence, was he? Well, what the hell. She was the one with the scissors, after all. "If you must," she says.

The door opens very slowly, and Shapiro's head peeps in at her, looking like an owl or a sloth or some other stupid distressed animal. He inches into her room, avoiding the strewn construction paper primly. He doesn't look very angry at her. "Hi," he says quietly.

Jade studies her guitar instead of looking at him. Oh. She hasn't expected him to look contrite. She's been expecting a lecture on – well, shit, Shapiro lectures her a lot. She doesn't know what he wants. Probably he's still worried about Cat. It would be - weird if he showed up at Cat's house so late, she guesses. They don't have a project together.

She tells her guitar, "I already apologized to Cat. I gave her a cupcake. She's fine. So you can go."

"Oh," says Shapiro in his stupid awkward way. "That's not why I'm here." He hesitates, taking one more step further into her room. She notes he was holding her giant black-and-purple purse, and he waved it at her a bit before carefully setting it down onto the floor. "I, uh – I brought your bag."

Jade looks at him impassively. Shapiro stares back, eyes big behind his glasses, looking like he was thrumming with energy again, but a different kind than earlier tonight.

He bursts out, "Jade, I'm really sorry! I didn't mean those things I said! I'm – I'm - " he trembles - "a really- a - a _shitty_ friend!"

Good lord in heaven, the boy's just cursed for her! She's surprised he hasn't gone up in flames.

She swallows down her shock, returning her gaze to her guitar, and gives a little shrug. "Not that shitty," she says, and she realizes that's why she has been so angry – because he had been right. She'd made Cat cry. "Everything you said was true, right? I _am_ horrible. I'm a - "

"No you aren't!" Robbie cries out, and wrings his hands at her in a nervous way. He flutters over to where she was sitting on her bed and collapses down next to her, clearly in the throes of great emotion. She looks over at him curiously, surprised. Shapiro flutters some more. "Look, I'm – just really sorry. You aren't horrible!" He draws in a breath. "I mean. if you were actually horrible I'd probably be dead right now, right? _Rasputin_ was horrible! The Terminator from the first movie was horrible! I'm so sorry for what I said about Beck. I never should have said those things! I don't know your life -"

Oh my god, she must have been killed on her way home and has now gone to hell, a hell where Robbie Shapiro will_ never stop talking. _Maybe a bus has hit her. Maybe she's been attacked by a wild deer. That was the only explanation for why Shapiro was currently yelling about Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Robbie, _chill,_" she cuts him off, screwing up and using his first name in her frantic attempt to shut him up. To rectify this, she adds: "You're going to short-circuit, you stupid robot."

"I'm sorry," Shapiro repeats. "Look, I know you hate me - "

"I don't hate you," Jade blurts out before she could stop herself, and Shapiro pauses to look over at her, mouth open a little in shock. She continued, forcing the words out: "I mean,_ yeah_, I hate everyone. But you take it all, like, _personal._"

Shapiro stares. His lips twitch briefly, like he isn't sure if he should smile or not. "I mean … shouldn't I?"

She frowns a bit, moving her hand up to rub at her brow piercing. "I think you give me too much credit," she informs him dryly. Shapiro stares some more, so she says, "You – you think I act so terrible on purpose. To bug you. Maybe I just am that nasty. It doesn't bother me. I've... I've always been this way."

Robbie, she thinks, has been probably the only person she knows who's been truly affected by her. She's never been overtly friendly to anyone she's met – early interactions with Mom's mean boyfriends had put a stop to that. She's always thought it was better to keep people at a distance until you know you can really trust them, and – well, honestly, she's just never been taught how to be_ nice_ to anyone. She doesn't know how. Whenever she would tease him, yell at him, hit him, he'd take it to heart. Like he didn't understand she was this way to everyone, not just him.

She says, "I push everyone away. Just like you do."

"I do not!" Shapiro squeaks out, unable to help himself.

"Sure you do," Jade informs him. That's his whole problem! "Maybe it's easier for you because you're such a weirdo. No one questions you as much. Hell, Beck didn't even know you had a sister until, like, practically a year after we all met."

"So what?"

Jade shrugs. "So nothing."

Shapiro frowns. He says, "Well … I don't mean to do it."

"Yeah," says Jade. "I know. You've got self-esteem issues."

Shapiro purses his mouth at her in a dour way that he does when he thinks she's being particularly unfunny. Jade just smiles sweetly back at him. He hesitates, encouraged by the smile. "So?" he asks. "Am I forgiven?"

She really doesn't know why Robbie looking like an offended rooster makes her feel suddenly happy again. Regardless, she turns her head to look at him, laughs. "Sure, whatever," she says. "Aw, that's so cute, Shapiro – were you scared I was up here cutting myself or something?"

"_Jade!_" squeals Shapiro, scandalized as always. "No – that isn't funny!"

She thinks she's said something else here, something teasing. She can't remember what, a little jab. They are getting back to normal. Shapiro starts to laugh, then remembers that his life is ruined and Cat's not his girl and everyone pities him, moans, puts his head in his hands. "Oh, God," he mutters into them. "I don't know what I'm going to say to anyone about tonight."

She realizes for the first time that she's actually put him into something of a predicament. He'll have to pick sides, even if she's already done fighting with Cat, have to defend her or not defend her to Beck and Tori and the like.

She thinks about Cat saying_ Robbie_ _never says what he means_ and she remembers – she remembers Shapiro being nice to her brother and Shapiro driving her to school and Shapiro buying her food and Shapiro organizing her notes for her without her asking. She thinks about how they've started to do these stupid Sikowitz impersonations, and how he'd nearly made her cry laughing in front of Beck last week. She thinks of the way his face had looked this morning and how badly it had made her feel, like she was supposed to protect him, or something, and hadn't been able to do it.

Robbie Shapiro's her friend. And he's actually a pretty good one.

Crap.

So she says: "Look, I'll make a deal with you."

Robbie gives her a quick wary look, then turns his gaze back down to her bedspread, picking at a loose thread on her comforter. "What sort of deal?"

Jade smacks his hand away from her blanket, and he squeaks. "Are you going to restitch that?" she demands of him. "Don't touch it!"

Shapiro holds his hands up and then keeps looking at her expectantly. Jade closes her eyes to collect her thoughts - why does she do these things to herself? She rubs at her brow. She opens her eyes once more, fastens her gaze on him. "Just talk."

Shapiro twitches. "Um. What?"

Jade scowls at him. "Just _talk_, Shapiro," she says. "Look, you know Cat isn't really your big problem." Shapiro looks doubtful. "So tell me something about you … tell me what you do on the weekends that's such a big secret!"

Shapiro just stares at her for a moment, looking hesitant as always. He bites his lower lip – Jade watches the pink of it as he worries it about with his teeth. He says, "Why do you want to know?"

God! He is difficult!

"Well," she says crisply, trying her hardest not to sound snitty, lest he bolts, "I'm – I'm apparently your _friend_. And friends are supposed to talk and whatnot. You never do. You never say anything important." She pauses. "So why don't you tell me something?"

Shapiro keeps staring at her, looking like nothing more than a nervous rabbit with a mop on its head. "You – fine," he says. He folds his hands in his lap, looking down at them, thinking. He chews on his lip for another moment. Jade watches him with interest.

Shapiro sighs. He keeps looking down at his lap, frozen. Jade keeps watching. Did he short-circuit? His batteries died? She doesn't think he's going to speak at all, and is about to lean over and punch him for a kick-start, when he raises his head a little bit, and he says suddenly, "My dad's in a nursing home."

Jade stares blankly.

That hadn't been what she's been expecting at all. "No shit?" she asks, before she can help herself. "I mean - what for?"

"Um," says Shapiro. He's still looking down at his lap, and he moves a hand to rub at the back of his neck (he really, really needs a haircut - he's starting to get too fluffy again. Right now, he reminds her of a strange humanoid Labrador / Poodle mix breed. A sad Labradoodle Shapiro). "He … he has Alzheimer's. That's the disease, you know, where you can't remember anything."

Jade knows what Alzheimer's disease is. She thinks Dad's mother had had it, before she passed away. Dad doesn't speak of her very much, though. Is Shapiro's dad _old_? "Wow," she says. "Um … isn't that for, like, old people, though?"

She's incredibly tactful.

"Yeah," Shapiro says, not bothered by her idiot questions, "mostly. Anyone can get it, though. Over the age of thirty? Um. It's really rare. It's … he started getting bad when I was in middle school. Like, twelve or something?"

"Oh," says Jade dumbly. She really doesn't know what to say at all. She'd been expecting Shapiro to tell her he was part of a glee club that only met on the weekends or something, not that his father was sick and in a state facility.

Robbie's head is still bowed down, not looking at her. His shoulders are very ridged. "Yeah," he says slowly, looking like he's gearing up. He sighs a little, then continues: "One day, when I was little, he just, like, forgot where he was driving to? Sometimes it's really bad and sometimes it's not. We had him at home for a while, and then my mom moved him. So, I go to see him a lot. It's – he's – ah, he wasn't too bad at first. Last year is when he started getting, um, worse. Now he doesn't really remember me at all. He thinks I'm, like, supposed to be eight years old. Sometimes he can't even remember how to eat, and stuff."

Jade thinks that is very sad. She'd thought that Shapiro's dad wasn't in his life anymore, because he never mentions him, but – well, what good is there to mention with that. Also, it sort of explains what a weirdo he is. She just frowns at him, unsure of what to say, but then he's speaking again, looking like he can't stop the words from coming out.

"It really sucks," Robbie says. "I mean, I was really close to him, I guess. But now, he doesn't know who I am. But I have to do it, go see him. I remember everything, even if he doesn't. And it's like, he's not dead, so I can't, like, feel sad about it. Or miss him?"

Sometimes Jade feels this way about her mother – misses her very badly, feels like crying over it, and then she feels very stupid for it, because Mom isn't dead. She just left her. Then she feels – you know,_ angry _at her mother, and that makes her feel even worse, because – it's _Mom_. But she guesses that Robbie can't feel angry, because his father can't – can't help not knowing him. And to go and see him every week? She doesn't know which is worse.

Shapiro continues: "But I do. Miss him, I mean. Even though - and my mom is – well, you saw her that one time. She's like … that."

Why had no one told her about this? Jade feels very stupid. Beck couldn't have pulled her aside just _one time_ and told her to shut the fuck up while she was creating scenarios about Shapiro collecting animal heads on the weekend? "So … does Beck know about this?" she asks him. "Or – or Andre?"

Shapiro actually glances at her at this, looking surprised. "No," he says. "Um, no one does. Just you, now." He makes a weird face that she thinks might be him trying out one of his fake smiles. "No one … really asks. And, I mean. I don't talk about it. It's sort of. Um. I don't know. Embarrassing?"

She chews on her lip, thinking. "That really sucks, Robbie," she says quietly, because it does. "I didn't know that about you."

"Yeah," Shapiro says, flushing. He is actually shaking a little bit, probably with nerves or with sadness, which Jade graciously doesn't mention. He smiles a tiny bit. "This feels weird," he says.

"What?" Jade asks. "Actually_ talking?_" Shapiro smiles his tiny smile down at the floor. She smirks. "Yeah, I know."

She pauses, thinking, watching him. The sad hard lines of his arms and shoulders, his profile as he sits dejectedly on her bed. Is this what he's always thinking of? "You shouldn't feel embarrassed," she tells him.

He looks up sharply to frown at her, looking a little confused.

She shrugs, feeling a little dumb for her declaration. She says, "It's not embarrassing. It's not like you caused it, or your dad caused it." She does not add, _Not like my mom._

Shapiro gives her another one of his _Okay Look I'm Totally Happy Right Now_ fake smiles. "Yeah," he says tightly, and drops her gaze. His hands go back in his lap and he fidgets for a moment, looking at the floor. "Um … okay. Now you."

Jade stares. "Me what?"

"You – I don't know. Tell me … tell me something." He gives a small snort, and smiles down into his lap, a hint of a real one. "Jade, this is really weird."

"I know," she says. Really weird that Shapiro is actually a person. Then she frowns at him. "Me talking isn't part of the deal."

"Well, it was an unfinished deal," Shapiro tells her. "You tell me to talk, but you don't say anything? That's not really fair."

"Life isn't fair," she mutters automatically. She frowns at her own hands. "I don't know … what you want to know."

"Jade, where is your mom?" Shapiro blurts out, and Jade jerks her head up in surprise. Robbie flushes under her gaze. "I mean … just, sometimes you talk about her like she's around, but then … not … I mean, never – never mind."

She just keeps staring at him. She can't understand him at all, really. They're barely even friends, aren't they? He doesn't need to be going about wondering – well, it's just – shit, even _Cat's_ never really asked her about where her mother is. She asks, "You want to know about my mom?"

Shapiro nods, and Jade scowls involuntarily down at her guitar. "Did you know Courtney Love plays a Fender?" she asks him. Mom really loves this kind of music. Jade thinks her first memory was probably of hearing a Hole CD. "That's what this is."

"That's – nice," Shapiro puts in awkwardly, clearly having absolutely no idea what she's going on about. He wouldn't, would he? No one would. Maybe Beck, if he even remembers all the random shit she's told him over the years.

"Fine," she bites out. "Fine, I'll tell you." Shapiro's just poured his guts out to to her – she guesses she owes him the same. "I'm, like, really trusting you here, okay?"

Shapiro nods, and she bites her lip again and frowns down at her guitar. She doesn't know – how to go about it. There's a lot she could say about her mother. She's very protective of the topic, and she doesn't want to - well. She guesses it's best to just dive in.

"My mom's a junkie," she says, and Shapiro just stares. Jade scowls very hard. "She really likes cocaine. Sometimes meth. I don't – really know where she is anymore."

"I - " chokes out Robbie, looking overwhelmed. "I'm really sorry."

"Whatever," Jade bites out. He thinks that's all he's going to get? No, he's asked her to talk, so now he'll hear the whole story, damnit. She'll only say it once. "I lived with her, until I was like eight or something."

Eight years and five months until Mom's current boyfriend had broke in one night, screaming that Mom was stealing shit from him. They'd screamed for a long time, and the neighbors in the apartment downstairs had called the police. It wasn't the first time the police had been called on her mother, but it had been the first time she'd actually been taken away. But Shapiro doesn't need to know all that.

"She and my dad broke up before I was born – I don't know. It's weird with them. He was a lot older. I think she met him at his college. He was in graduate school.

"We lived in a lot of places. She's a hairdresser, or was I guess. She hurt her arm somehow so she got disability from the state. We used to eat noodles every night." She adds, because Shapiro has this awful sad look on his face, "She _really loved_ me."

"I'm sure - " Shapiro starts, but she cuts him off, a bit inanely: "One night we stood on our roof and threw water balloons at people. She used to steal barrettes for me from the super market. She did crazy shit a lot, but she liked to spend time with me."

She tells Shapiro about how Mom always had strange guys with her – her drug dealers, Jade understands now. She had thought this was normal, bringing different men into your house weekly. She tells him how they used to snort and shoot things, right in front of her. She'd thought that was normal, too. "Do you know what angel dust smells like?" she asks him.

Shapiro shakes his head, huge eyes watching her from behind his glasses.

"Well," Jade says necessarily, "it smells like shit." When they'd be cooking that shit – she doesn't know. She doesn't remember too much. There was always something, really. Sometimes she'd come home from school, head up the steps to the apartment, and smell that sickeningly sweet, weirdly burnt odor, and just think: _Great. It's going to be a good night._ Sometimes Mom would snort some stuff that would make her stop breathing and turn blue. Whatever guy she'd be with would laugh and have to slap her face. _Shit happens, baby. It's all good. We're all awake, huh._

He doesn't need to know all that, either.

She gives him this: "Sometimes I'd come home from the neighbors' house and they'd, like, be taking all the furniture apart. It makes you paranoid, I guess, some of the shit. They'd think there were bugs in the house. I don't know if they meant, like, wires, or if they meant, you know, spiders and shit. I just remember how scary that was. I don't know why."

That was the meth, she thinks. She doesn't – really, she doesn't know too much about drugs, except that they suck, and she won't ever do them, or let Cat do them. There were always little vials of things strewn about the house – one thing Mom had liked a lot, a weird little vial of liquid she could dip her cigarette in. She's heard of other people using it, and she knows it is called by a lot of slang terms. Once, a few years ago, she'd asked Dad what it was, trying to sound casual.

Dad had looked very upset. "Are people at your school using that?" he'd asked.

Jade shrugged. "Dunno. What's in it? What does it do?"

"Well," Dad had said, looking very hesitant, "I believe it's – well, usually it contains mostly formaldehyde. Do you know what that is?"

She thought she knew, but she shook her head.

"It's embalming fluid," Dad said in a very matter-of-fact tone. "I don't – I assume it gives you some sort of high."

That was disgusting. That was what they put in dead people.

Shapiro doesn't need to know that either.

She tells him a bit more – about how Mom had been busted a few times, and eventually been arrested. She tells him about how Mom had been put on probation, and Jade had been taken away and put into foster care – a group home, a Catholic school, St. Anna's. She'd been there for four months, until they'd been able to track down her father – very hard, because he hasn't been on her birth certificate – and then she'd gone to live with him. She told him about how all the girls at St. Anna's had hated her - she didn't know how to get on with other kids because she'd always been with Mom or worrying about Mom or trying to take care of Mom. One night the girls in her room had all put gum in her hair one night, and she'd had to get most of it cut off.

Shapiro, for some reason, looks very stricken at this. Probably he knows how important Jade's hair is to her. Once, she'd punched him in the stomach for trying to pick a leaf out of it.

She tells him: "My mom – like, she never had a lot of money. We used to buy paper and scissors from the dollar store. We'd just cut up the paper in all these weird designs and I'd play with them. I didn't really have any other toys. Just my bear." She nods towards Secret Bear, sitting primly on her pillow.

"Oh," says Shapiro, looking very affected. He reaches out to touch Secret Bear, but she slaps his hand away once more. Stupid grabby boys. Instead he sends his gaze down to all of the construction paper on the floor. _The secret of the scissors_, she can picture him thinking. "You – do you ever get to see her anymore?"

"Nope," says Jade. She's looking at the floor, too. "I – I wrote her a letter when I got into Hollywood Arts, but she never wrote back." Jade hadn't thought much of it at the time, too consumed with the joy of getting into private school and Cat getting better with her pills and Cat's birthday and that concert Dad had taken them too. She hadn't felt too badly when she hadn't heard back from Mom. She's almost forgotten writing that letter. Sort of like – shit, like how Robbie's dad had forgotten him. She says, "I guess she forgot me too."

"I'm so sorry, Jade," Shapiro says, looking like someone's just ripped his heart out and served it up on a platter. She doesn't understand why he would look like that for her, and it makes her uncomfortable.

"Well, I forgive you," she says drolly. She glowers at him. "Look, I don't know why I told you all this shit." She adds, "I ate a lot of lasagna before you came over. It took me years to tell Beck all this." The urge to hit him is overwhelming, but somehow she manages to contain herself. "So don't go around blabbing."

Shapiro flushes, and looks up at her in surprise. "Jade, I wouldn't – I mean, it's not _bad_ – I, it's not mine to tell - "

"Look," she cuts him off suddenly. She guesses she has to say this part of him, offer him an explanation for – for earlier. "I've known a lot of people, Shapiro. You're, like, not that shitty of a person." Quickly, she adds: "Even though you're so annoying."

Shapiro smiles faintly.

She continues: "And you always, like – _try_... I can see you try. So I guess, sometimes it pisses me off, when I see people walk all over you. Because they'd walk all over me, if I let them. So I don't."

"Uh - ?" he starts questioning, piquing his dumb eyebrows at her.

She rolls her eyes. "So that's why I snapped at Cat," she says pointedly. "Because you wanted her so much, and she doesn't care."

He flushes and drops her gaze once more. "I mean, it's not really her fault," he mutters. He's picked up some of the construction paper from her floor, and he clutches it tightly. She leans over and plucks the papers from his hand.

"Yeah, I know," she says. "You should have tried harder, right? But it still sucks, huh?"

Robbie gives her a sad little smile. It's a rather bitter one. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, it does."

She can't help but – think about Beck in that moment, and how she'd thought if she had changed herself just a bit, she could have stayed with him, made him continue to want her. What what would be worth that, to change for someone? Maybe she's not so different from Shapiro after all. And that's a horrible thought, but – what else is there, really? She's just opening her mouth to say this, but Shapiro beats her to it, blurting out, "I'm really sorry about – about your mom. I'm sure she loves you a lot. I don't know if my mom does. She's so – closed off. I feel like I'm like her, but not really the same at all. I used to … I used to just wonder, like all the time, what made me so different. I wondered how I could change. But I guess I can't."

She's seen Shapiro's mother leaving to go back to her office one day, tall and severe, as she was coming over to work on their project. Shapiro had been fluttering about after her as she'd stepped onto the porch, trying to ask her a question about his sister's soccer practice. "I don't have time, Robert," the woman had said, looking very tired by him (Jade didn't blame her). "Just call the school." She'd swept by without noticing Jade standing in the driveway.

Whenever Dad goes anywhere, he always tells Jade to have fun and be careful, and makes sure there's soda in the fridge.

So: "Yeah," she says, "me either." She can't change either, can she? She feels compelled to add: "And I'm sorry about, like, your dad. I didn't think he was – that you had problems like that. I just thought you murdered small animals or something on the weekend, that was your secret."

Shapiro stares at her, appalled, with his mouth falling open, which is the reaction she's wanted. She snorts. "_So_ attractive, Robot," and his mouth curls into a smile. She watches it, then says: "I won't tell anyone either. But you should talk about it more. You can't just, like, keep telling your problems to all those old people who won't remember."

Shapiro nods very seriously like she's said something poignant. Jade rubs at her forehead again, feeling awkward. Why the fuck is she talking so much? "I feel like we should be on the Maury show or some shit," she mutters, and Shapiro grins for real. "Can we _please_ stop talking about feelings now?"

"Yes, please," Robbie echoes fervently.

Jade spares a glance to the clock by her bed – it's nearly midnight. Christ, she's been entertaining King Dork for over an hour now! She feels very tired by it, very heavy with all she knows now, and what she's said. She should – logic is telling her to kick him out now, make him go home, but if he leaves … well, she'll have to think about these things.

She asks, "Do you wanna hang out or something? My dad just bought these new DVDs. We can go downstairs and check them out."

Shapiro looks hesitant for another second, and she thinks he'll say no and she'll have to kill him and probably hang out with his lifeless body, but then his face clears, and he says, "Sure."

He helps her clear the rest of the construction paper from her floor, and they head downstairs into the living room. Robbie steps on some of Jeff's Legos and yelps a bit, making her happy. He decides he wants to watch Scooby Doo. It's the boxed set from the 80s, with Vincent Price doing a voice, so she allows this. Very nicely, she gets him a bottle of water from the fridge and they head back up to her room. He sits back down on her bed, and she lets him. Shapiro groans when the first disc starts to play, remembering the characters.

"Oh _God_, not Flim-Flam," he says, making her laugh.

They stay up all night, until the sun is peeping up into her window and her alarm's going off to wake her up and Shapiro is squeaking about sleep apnea and being late for school and not having a toothbrush. They've watched the whole series.

She wouldn't have been able to sleep, anyway.

**AN: These chapters, where I pull a lot of dialogue from TYSW, are always hard to do, and I don't like this one as much as some others. It was so tedious to write, I don't like the flow at all, and thank God it's over (I much prefer chapter 18, but I love making Cat and Jade interact far too much). Now I can make new fun. This was actually a chore to read over, so if you see any glaring errors, point them out!  
**

**Also - seriously, drugs are bad.  
**


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty**

_Your headlights look like diamonds  
Your taillights burn like coals  
Tell me how this story ends  
Before the fires go cold _

- The Arcade Fire, 'Headlights Look Like Diamonds'

Christmas was boring and uneventful, as usual. She'd forgotten that the good thing about having roughly fourteen hundred annoying relatives was that if each of them gave you forty bucks for the holiday, you ended up with a lot of money.

It was a seven-hour car ride up to Uncle Richard's house. He's Dad's youngest brother, and the richest one. Some kind of engineer, Jade thought she'd been told. His wife – how was he married? He's the one uncle that's weirder than Dad – was an anthropology professor at Washington State.

She'd made sure to fully charge her PearPod before the trip and she and Jeff had packed a whole suitcase of snacks the morning they were leaving. Dad came downstairs, dressed in his ugliest beige suit, and sat at the counter to watch them. They were all just waiting on Sophia, who was curling her hair, which meant they probably won't leave for at least an _hour._

Whenever Dad or Sophia drove her somewhere and they said 'Let's go!" Jade would practically break her neck putting her shoes on and scrabbling like mad for the front door, falling down the steps breaking both legs and dragging herself out to the car using her elbows and teeth and sheer willpower. Whenever _they_ have somewhere to go, they could say "Let's go!" and then spend an hour on hair or picking out a coordinating tie.

Jade looked at the carton of eggs she's holding and wondered if she had time to boil them for the drive. No, Jeff would probably eat them and get gassy. Worse, Dad might! She sent a glower to them both for being disgusting boys.

Jeff stuffed some Gummi Worms and a loaf of bread into the suitcase. Jade added a package of marshmallows on top of it.

Dad watched. He said, "Is all that really necessary?"

Jade and Jeff had stared at him silently. Jade asked, "I mean, what time are you planning on stopping for lunch?"

Dad checked his watch – it was almost nine. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "Perhaps at around one or two?"

"Oh my god," said Jade in distress. Jeff also looked upset. "We'll need more than this."

Jeff had run upstairs to find another suitcase. Dad looked perturbed and hopeless.

Eventually they'd gotten everything set to go and they were only on mile twelve before Jeff started screaming that he'd left his stupid stuffed rabbit up in his room and they had had to turn back.

Jade read the new book Dad had got her (a play by Woody Allen, which just made her laugh and pretend Shapiro was narrating), ate her marshmallows, and felt okay, even though Cat wasn't awake yet and she had no one to text. Shapiro sent her a message at a little after ten-thirty, but she had just glanced at it before setting her PearPhone back down, feeling a bit weird and not wanting to talk to him, because – because he was a boy (sort of, at any rate) and boys were stupid and she _hated them all._

Why won't Cat wake up? Perhaps all the tofu sprouts had really tuckered the girl out. And oh god, she's only been in the car with Dad for two hours and already she's been thinking of horrible geek words like 'tuckered.' Also, did tofu sprout? She really needs Cat, to talk to her, to tell her about what had happened after they'd gotten off the phone last night.

Jeff began to snore, and Jade put her headphones on.

* * *

How it has gone was:

Jade's laying on her stomach on her bed, blanket all messed up and half-dangling off, talking to Cat on her PearPhone. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and she's gearing herself up for the trip to Washington. It's going to be pretty lame, and she'll have to deal with a lot of stupid family members, but at least there's always good food there.

Cat is already in San Francisco at her uncles', very excited to experience her first vegan Christmas (Jade pities her). The girls are reminiscing about better times with their families. Last year, Cat had joined her for the holiday.

"Remember when we convinced Jeff that your uncle was secretly The Incredible Hulk and he ran up and punched him in the kidney during dinner so he'd transform?" she asks.

Jade kicks her feet a little so that the pillows beside them topple to the floor, too, and she rests her head against the cool smoothness of the mattress. She giggles – it is safe to do that, here, because it's just in her bedroom and it's just Cat. "Do I remember the _best moment of my life?_" she asks exaggeratedly, making Cat laugh.

"I think I almost - " Cat's saying, and then Jade's door opens and the man himself, Jeff, comes barging in. He takes about four steps into the room and stares at her balefully.

"Jeffrey Starr!" Jade cries out, rolling over to look at him (hey, she's in a good mood, so what?). "Hold on, Cat. Freakageek, we were just talking about you! What's up, brother?"

Jeff keeps looking at her with his face set in a petulant pout. He says, "Jerk Bait is here to see you."

Jade snorts before she can help herself, partly at his expression, partly at the terminology. "_Who?_"

Jeff scowls harder. "He's standing downstairs," he informs her. "He won't leave!"

Ooookay. She really has no clue what he's talking about. Jeff wouldn't call Robbie that, would he? – and anyway, she'd just gotten off the phone with him before Cat had called, talking the boy through resetting his retarded PearPad.

"Um, okay, who does - ?" Jade starts, then growls a little, sitting up. "Hey, Cat? I gotta call you back, I think Shapiro is here or something - "

Cat giggles in a very annoying happy way. "Kay kay!" she trills. "Tell him I said hi! Oh, tell him I'm sorry I didn't text him back last night, I was - "

"Kay kay," Jade interrupts with false brightness, and hangs up. She frowns at Jeff once more as she pushes up off her bed, follows him as he turns and leaves the room and leads her down the staircase. She's gearing herself up to start hollering as she rounds the banister onto the lower landing, and –

Beck is standing in the hallway beside the living room, wearing his most awful leather jacket and leaning against one of the pillars beside the front door. He looks up at her and smiles.

"Oh," says Jade dumbly. "It's you." She comes the rest of the way down the steps. "What d'you – uh, what do you want?"

Jeff, to his credit, stares at Beck in dour silence and then sweeps out of the hall towards the den. Beck looks after him, a rueful little smile on his face.

"Well," he says, "he's super pleasant as always."

Jade snorts a little – Jeff really hates Beck, yeah. "Yup," she says. "What're you doing here?"

Beck looks a bit guilty. "I was … in the neighborhood."

She snorts again. "Doubt it," she says before she can help herself.

"Well, I was – driving around." Beck gives her an abashed half-grin. "I thought I'd stop by. Are you doing anything?"

Jade looks at him warily. "Supposed to be packing."

"Oh yeah, your family has that – thing – are you going to, uh, Richard's, right?"

For some reason it hurts a little that Beck recalls her uncle's name. She's never really bothered to learn the names of many of his family names, has she? "Yeah," she says. "Leaving tomorrow."

"Yeah," Beck echos. "That's cool."

"I thought you were Shapiro," Jade informs him, because she doesn't really know what else to say. "He just had a crisis with his PearPad. I thought he was coming over to make me fix it."

"Um – oh." For some reason, Beck looks surprised, and a little – well, she doesn't know. "Is he – are you, um, expecting him?"

"No."

Beck had been very startled when, three days prior, she and Shapiro had walked into Sikowitz's class together, still wearing the same clothes from Tuesday. Robbie told her later that Beck had questioned him about it, and she'd scowled. "Nothing mean," he'd been quick to reassure her – like she cared.

Now Beck looks slightly relieved for some reason. "Okay," he says. He makes a silly little face. "So, um – you and Robbie, BFFs now. That's really cool."

Jade makes a horrible face back. "Oh, shut up," she says. He sounds like Cat! "We are not."

Beck smiles again. "Yeah," he says.

"Well - " she crosses her arms - "so – what – what did you want?"

"Just – well, I wanted to see if you – wanted to hang out or something," Beck says in a halting tone, sweeping his hair out of his eyes. It's starting to get long again. "You never answer my phone calls, so I figured I'd just show up. Um, if you're busy - "

"No," she interrupts him. "I mean, I'm not. Busy."

"Cool." He smiles again. "Do you – want to watch a movie or something?" She looks at him warily, so he says, "Whatever you want."

Hmm.

Well, she could use someone to watch the Halloween 2 remake with - Shapiro won't do it. She can usually get him to watch pretty much any horror movie with her, but he's very affected by the plight of Laurie Strode (Jade thinks the music just scares him). While they were watching the first remake the other day, Shapiro had been pointing out stupid things to her – like who had composed the soundtrack, and how the director had used an actress from the original movies in a supporting role. She'd played the lead's goth friend. Jade had scoffed at him. As if she wouldn't know that already!

"She's pretty good, don't you think?" Robbie had asked absently, and put his head in his hands to look at the screen. "For the movie, I mean. She could be in a lot better roles. Don't you think?"

Jade had stared at him for a moment, then laughed loudly. "Oh my god, do you have a _horror movie crush?_"

"No!" squealed Shapiro in his usual flustered way, and frantically stole some of the popcorn out of the bag she was holding (could he even eat popcorn?). "She's just, you know, she's kind of a bad-ass in this." He'd put his head back in his hands, returning his gaze to the screen. "I like her outfits."

Sometimes she forgot that Shapiro was actually a teenaged boy, and thus was probably horny and disgusting _all the time_. She jabbed him in the ribs, greatly amused. "You like punk girls, Shapiro?"

"No!" cried Robbie, and ate more popcorn.

"You know," said Jade, still laughing at him, and flipped her hair into his face (he sputtered), "some people would say_ I'm_ a punk girl."

"Please stop this," said Robbie, who was redder and redder. "Don't you want to watch the movie?"

Jade laughed in joy. She had also felt the need to add, "And that girl is like thirty-five now anyway, Robbie, you're _gross._"

Now, what was she – oh, right, Beck is still staring at her like a stupid bug.

"I'm going to watch Halloween," she informs him. "You can, like, stay – if you want." Belatedly, and a bit stupidly, she remembers that one of their last fights as a couple had been over watching that. Beck wasn't easily scared, and he thought most horror movies were silly, exploitative, and repetitive. Jade thinks they are fun. They'd gotten into a big screaming match over it - Shapiro had fled Beck's RV in tears.

Beck looks like he's possibly remembering too, but maybe not. "Yeah," he says, "I can stay. I'll watch that with you."

"Fine," she says shortly, and trudges into the den. Jeff's in the corner, playing with plastic dinosaurs, and he gazes up at her and Beck in mute disappointment. "Sorry, Dahmer," she says to him.

Jeff does not look heartened at this nickname. "Jade," he whines, sending Beck another distressed look. "You're supposed to be _packing._"

"Who cares?" she snaps at him. "Get out!" Jeff just looks at her balefully once more and then surrenders the den to her, grabbing up his T-Rex and scampering from the room.

Beck watches in silence as her brother flees. "He looks like he got taller," he says nicely.

Jade sighs at the lie. Jeff will never get taller. "Yeah," she says absently, moving over towards the DVD rack. "Soon he'll be the height of a proper six year old."

Beck lounges on the couch. "How old is he now, anyway?"

Jade rolls her eyes. God, it's not like they've been broken up for a century – he could at least remember her brother's birthday. "He turned eight in October."

"Oh yeah," says Beck. "That's right."

Dad, Jeff, and Sophia all have October birthdays. The whole month of October is a stupid celebration of life, culminating in sparklers and orange-peel cupcakes (usually courtesy of Cat) for Halloween. Jade hates orange flavoring! Then, anyway, she's all by herself in the stupid month of May. She's a Taurus. Cat is an Aries, which is why they're best friends (sometimes Cat reads them their horoscopes at school. Yesterday, during their shortened lunch period, she'd gasped at her PearPhone. "Jade!" she said. "Mercury is in retrograde again!"

"Hate it when that happens," Shapiro had said absently, big nose buried in his biology textbook (she guessed Cat had spoken to him already – he was still being pretty quiet, and looked a bit droopy, but Andre wasn't in school yesterday, and he'd been all right). Jade hit him on the top of the head very hard before turning her attention back to Cat).

She thinks she is letting her mind roam so she doesn't have to deal with the presence of Beck.

Jade gets the movie set up and collapses on the couch beside him – not too close, mind you – clutching the remote tightly.

"Oh," says Beck in a tight voice. "A remake. Rob Zombie. Cool."

Rather restrainedly, he doesn't say much else on the matter.

They get through the movie with moderate success. Beck stays very quiet, until Jade can't help the tension any longer and starts laughing at how dramatic the music is in some scenes, and then he begins to laugh too.

"Why is he still so _strong?_" Beck asks at one point, as Michael Myers puts a girl through a window. "Wasn't he just in a coma for a whole year?"

"Yeah, what did he even eat?" Jade says, smirking. "He was knocked out in the freaking woods." Beck sends her a smile from across the couch. Uncomfortable, she turns her gaze back to the TV.

"It's nice to hang out with you, Jade," Beck says once the credits are rolling.

"Thanks," she responds, calculatedly lofty. Wouldn't want him to think she's enjoyed his presence, or misses him or something.

Beck moves a fraction of an inch closer on the couch, setting her on guard. "I miss it," he says. "You know? You were always around."

"Yeah," she says, and that's all she'll say.

"It's so hard to get in touch with you now," Beck continues. He frowns a little, looking sad. "You don't want to see me at all?"

She lets herself gaze back at him, wondering if he is actually hurt by this. _You left me._ "I just, I'm busy," she says, a little dumbly. She_ is _busy! "I mean, Cat's always, like, up my butt again, I have that dumb project with Robbie, he bothers me so much, I had to_ defrost his dinner_ last week - " she gives him a pointed look of frustration.

"Yeah," says Beck, grinning a little. He rubs his jaw, sends her a guarded look. "You know, sometimes I think you like - " he cuts himself off, letting his hand fall back to the couch.

"What?" she demands. "You think I like _what?_" _Likes_ cooking soup for stupid Cat all day? _Likes_ being in the library watching Shapiro have his eighteenth conniption fit about where she's purchasing her cigarettes underage?

"Nothing," Beck says finally, and shakes his head. "It's – it's crazy. Never mind."

"Okay, freak," she mutters, still looking at him. She really can't help herself from looking at him. He's very close to her now.

"I just – _miss_ you sometimes, is all," Beck says, staring back. Jade lets her eyes leave his face, and she brings her gaze down to the couch cushion beside him. "Do you ever – think about us?"

"I guess so," she says, and she tries her hardest to make it sound resentful.

Beck twists the side of his face up at her in a sad little smile. She mutters: "I mean, of course I do. Don't you?"

"Yeah," says Beck. He leans over suddenly - she's too surprised to stop him - to push a lock of her hair behind her ear. It's a very familiar gesture, and she accepts it, because even still, his hand is like a second skin on her. "I wish – I had been better to you."

"Well," says Jade, queen of emotions and feelings, "uh. Well. Oh well."

Beck just keeps looking at her, and oh, she'd forgotten how dark his eyes were. There was a reason Cat had called him Aladdin for so long. Jade's Disney prince, she would sigh happily, as Jade scowled and hit her and Beck just looked amused at them both. He could be very captivating. She mutters, "We argued a lot."

"Yeah," says Beck. "Well. Oh well."

She knows that he's planning to kiss her before his face changes, before he even begins to lean in. She does know him so well, still. It hasn't been that long, really, that they've been apart, though sometimes it feels as though they are existing on different planets now, moving in different orbits. Looking into his eyes now, she wonders why she had ever been mad at him, anyway. Why she hadn't begged and crawled for him.

Then he does lean, and she leans too, and their lips meet in the middle, and it's so easy, like it always had been, to be with Beck, to kiss him. She'd never gotten to kiss him goodbye, and, well – she'd wanted to. Kiss him. Again.

His mouth is soft against her, his lips pliable, and she knows him so well, has leaned into him a thousand times, maybe more. He tastes a little sweet, probably from the fruit gum he likes to chew. It has that little zebra on it. Fruit Stripes, right? She liked to make fun of him for it.

It's a bad idea, very bad, to be kissing Beck. But the idea had been half his, anyway, perhaps more.

She shifts over slightly, moving to the left, to get at a better angle, to be able to kiss him deeper. She feels his soft hair fall against the side of her face. He captures her bottom lip for a moment between his teeth, something she has liked. He knows her very well. She kisses him back, wanting him.

Beck sighs a little when she moves closer, and his hand moves again to push her hair behind her ear once more. He lingers there, soft, before lowering his arm to wrap it around her waist, and that's familiar too, the splay of his hands across her hip. Why had she worn this shirt? She kisses him harder, forcing her eyes closed.

It's a very bad idea.

Five kisses. Five kisses, but they're sort of long, and they meld together, so maybe it's more. He is so warm, the lines of his body sure and_ there_. She pushes forward onto him, she lets her hand curl in the planes of his chest. He makes a small noise, a noise she's heard many times before, and he pushes into her too, leaning to kiss her harder. Their noses bump, but she doesn't mind.

His other arm, the one not against her waist, snakes up to come between them, and he puts his hand against hers, holding it, like a caress, like he actually wants to hold her hand. His fingers are strong and thin and she remembers them, too, remembers what they could do, how they could make her feel, just his hand against hers, and that's – well, that's really just too much.

She pulls back abruptly, moving away, and Beck's hand is still over hers, so it comes with her, and then they're just holding hands and looking at each other from across the couch. "No," she says. "I – you – you can't _do_ that."

He's still holding her hand, so she shakes it, hard, making him drop it.

He says the most horrible sentence ever then. He says: "I still love you."

Jade just stares at him, with her mouth burning where he's kissed her and her hand burning where he's held it and her hip burning where he's touched her. "Well – well, _stop,_" she says.

Beck frowns at her. He leans in again, and she's fearful that he'll kiss her again, because all she could do would be to kiss back, but he just says, "Jade, I - "

She blurts out, "You have a girlfriend. I can't. I mean, I don't want to."

Beck stops leaning and pulls back like he's been burned, too. He frowns at her again, and his dark eyes won't leave her, no. "It's not – _serious,_" he says slowly, with great difficulty.

She notes that he has not denied it this time, though.

"You," she says, and finds she has nothing else to say.

"It's not, like," Beck pushes the words out, "it's not like with _you,_ Jade. I want – I miss – I wish I had been better. Don't you, don't you remember us? How we used to be?"

Her heart is pounding very hard in her chest, so hard she's surprised she can't hear it, that _he_ can't hear it, see her chest shuddering. She doesn't know what – but she can't, she won't. She says, "I remember being pretty unhappy with each other."

He frowns again, bites his lip, like he's forgotten all that, why they'd broken up in the first place, and why he had walked away – let her walk away. He opens his mouth, starts to say something, but she interrupts him quickly, before he can even begin, "Is this what you came over for?"

Beck looks startled. "No!" he cries. "I wasn't – I didn't mean to kiss you. I just, I just wanted to see you. I was thinking about you. I miss you."

"Yeah," she mutters. She shifts again, moving further away from him, rubs her brow. "Well – don't."

"You - " Beck makes a frustrated noise. "Jade, I love – look, I just, I wanted to talk to you, I wanted you to know - "

"To know what?" she demands.

He laughs softly, a defeated noise. "Would you just let me talk for once?" he asks, and instead of anger, there's a small little sad grin tugging on his face.

"Fine," she says sulkily.

"You – just – I was thinking - "

The world will never know, really, how hard she restrains herself from drawling out, _'You, thinking? Shocking.'_

" - look, when I see you – with, with Cat, and with – _Robbie,_ I just, I was thinking, and I – I wanted to see you, Jade. I forgot – how you can be, sometimes. When you like someone. I miss – I was wrong, I think, sometimes, to – I just, I wish we still talked."

"We are talking," she says flatly.

Beck snorts a little. "Yeah, I see that," he says. "I just – Jade, I love you. I miss you."

She stares at him. She opens her mouth to speak, has nothing to say, and stares at him some more. He loves her, he misses her, but it's not enough. Finally she says, "Are you asking me back out?"

He gives her a hesitant grin. "If – if you want me to be."

She blurts out: "Bassoon!"

Beck frowns. He says, "Huh?"

"You - " she growls in frustration. "The flutist. Um, violin. Alicia!"

"Oh," says Beck, and grins a little at her, like he can't help it. "Alison, Jade."

She feels the strong and familiar urge to smack him upside the head. "Yes, _her,_" she grits out. "What about her?"

Beck frowns, and shoots her a quick glance. "Ali's a nice girl," he says softly. "I really care about her. I like her a lot. She's sweet, she's funny, she's smart - "

"_Lovely,_ keep extolling her virtues," Jade snarls.

Beck laughs, abashed. "But I mean – she isn't you," he says. "That's all I meant. You – I like her, but she's not you. If you – if you want me to – I mean, I'll call her right now. I will. I'll stop seeing her."

She doesn't know what to say.

Hasn't she – for months, really, hasn't this been what she's wanted – him to come back to her, to apologize? To change his mind?

"Jade?" he prompts softly, because she's just been staring at him.

She feels a little dumbstruck, and she – she isn't sure anymore. Beck is looking at her now, hopefully and a little expectantly, so she does need to say something. She says, "You – I thought you said you were tired of fighting all the time. With me."

Beck frowns. "I know I said that," he says. "But I – don't you think it's worth it? I mean … " he hesitates for a moment, chewing on his lip. "Maybe we can, like, try. To change."

Jade stares back. Doesn't he know that she _had _been trying? She had always tried to control her temper, to change, to be more like how she thought he had wanted her to be. She just hadn't been very good at it, hadn't liked it. He'd given her time outs and she'd given him migraines. She doesn't think that it should be that way – that is, if you need to change, you should both want to, and both actively try, and you should be, like, glad to do it.

Or you could just stay the same as you are and it would work: like how Cat is crazy and kind of dumb sometimes and Jade is mean about everything and they're both fine with it and are best friends. Like how Shapiro is a nerd and hopeless and just lets her be offensive and she hasn't even set any of his science notebooks on fire since sophomore year (and that had been an accident, anyway, mostly – who knew that the pen ink he used was so flammable?).

And what had Beck done for her? Maybe they can get back together for a few months, and they can both pretend to be people they aren't, and Jade will be sweet to the whole universe and Beck won't flaunt it for maybe five minutes when other girls hit on him. She doesn't – the thing is, he always thought it was_ funny_ when she would fly into these rages about other girls, like he couldn't believe she'd think he'd want someone else, but could he never just be _direct _with her? She'd nearly set his RV on fire the one time she'd found out he'd had a cheerleader over, and freaking _Shapiro and Harris_ had been the ones to chase her around and hide her matches and squeal, "She's _eight, _Jade! She's his neighbor! He's babysitting!"

So, she guesses that the bottom line is, and this is hard for her to think: no, she doesn't think it's worth it.

She could be with him again – she does miss the feeling of always having someone to be with, does miss seeing him constantly and waking up next to someone and buying breakfast together and having people know you've been with someone the whole night. Those things are nice, and she does miss them.

She supposes she could go back to that, for a while. But she won't let herself start to ignore Cat again, or ignore her brother, and – and her Sociology class is going to be _tough _this semester, she can't read her case studies in Beck's cramped RV, and if she's going to be with him all the time again, who's going to help Robbie to stop being so hopeless? She can't tell Beck all the things Robbie's told her, no, and she just -

Well, she doesn't want to do it.

"I don't want to," she says suddenly, and Beck's forehead smooths out into surprise. "Um. I mean. I don't want to – try. I don't want to change."

"Oh," says Beck a bit falteringly. He really does look a bit shell-shocked – she had kissed him back, after all. She really doesn't think anyone's ever turned him down before – girls, teachers, Robbie – and he doesn't quite know what to do.

She tries to voice her thoughts: "You – I mean, it would just be the same. We'd still just fight all the time, you'd just piss me off - " here he gives her a sad little smile - "and I don't … I mean, I'm fine with the way things are now. I don't, I don't want to. Stay with – with your girl."

"Right," says Beck slowly from a million miles away across the couch. "You – I guess you're right, Jade. I don't – I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. I shouldn't have asked you to … I'm really sorry." He still looks confused and a bit perturbed at himself. He looks up from his lap cautiously. "Are you mad at me now?"

Jade thinks about it. "I guess not."

"Okay," says Beck, and he lifts the side of his mouth up at her in a weak half-smile. "I should probably – I mean, do you want me to go?"

Jade thinks about it. "Yeah, I – I guess I do."

Beck had nodded, and he'd gotten up slowly, gathered his things, put his jacket back on. She'd walked him to the door, and both of them had been silent, not knowing what to say to each other anymore. Beck had hesitated. "No hard feelings?" he'd asked.

"Whatever," Jade had said, and he'd given her one last half-smile before he'd gone through the door, heading towards his car.

He was leaving her again, but this time she'd told him to.

Then she was alone. She leaned against the glass of the front door, watching as his car lights turned on – _red lights mean you're leaving; white ones mean returning_ – and then she'd latched and locked the door. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself.

She'd steeled herself up and she'd went and she'd made Jeff some Poptarts in apology for snapping earlier, and then she'd gone upstairs to pack her things for the trip.

**AN: The transitioning between flashbacks is a bit clunky, I think, but overall I'm satisfied. I've been plotting this chapter since TYSW! I'm sure I'm the only one who knows my own fanfic so well, but there are the teeniest of hints in it - Robbie mentions that Jade has not returned his phone calls for a few days, and there is this passage: **

"_**Would you mind … going to Beck's?" he asks. "I'm supposed to hang out with him. I have to give him his present, too."**_

_**Jade thinks about it, staring up at Robbie's ceiling. "I guess not," she says. "But I'm not speaking to him."**_

_**"I thought you guys were okay now!" Robbie exclaims.**_

_**Jade shrugs. "We are, but I started thinking about how stupid his face is. Now I'm annoyed again."**_

**I apologize to ZenNoMai for the surely Bade-induced headache. ;) **

**I wanted to get into the habit of posting some song lyrics at the beginning of every chapter for mood-setting, but I've been forgetting, and also I only like about ten bands now anyway. Anywho, enjoy!  
**


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty-One**

"I can't believe you _kissed him!_" Cat is squealing on the phone. For emphasis, she cries once more, "_KISSED HIM!_"

Jade, burrowed under roughly eighteen fancy pillows on her uncle's couch, growls quietly. "For the last time, idiot, _he_ kissed_ me!_" she snarls.

"Noo_-ooo!_" Cat singsongs. "Obviously he's still a-_live!_" She's being so shrill that Jade actually has to pull the phone away from her ear a bit, in the hopes of saving at least _some_ of her hearing. A suspicious glower out from underneath the pillows show her that Jefferson is still distracted by several cousins and the TV. God forbid he find out she's been sucking face with Beck again while they've been home alone and get her grounded for not watching him. Cat continues: "You didn't _kill_ him for it! So obviously you kissed him_ too!_"

_CHRIST!_

Jade tries hard not to holler. Why the hell had she thought it was so vital that Cat know this information, anyway? All Cat's been doing for the past ten minutes is to squeal and clap about the reunion of Beck and Jade, then actually recall all of what Jade's said, and squeal and fret about the non-union of Beck and Jade. She's also refusing to let Jade hang up.

"Michael, stop that!" Cat cries now, sounding chagrined, and then giggles abruptly, dispelling the illusion. "Oh god – you're_ so dumb!_" She laughs some more. "_Stop!_"

"What?" Jade demands, growling. "What's he doing?"

"He - " a pause and some crackling from the line as Cat giggles helplessly - "oh, he's - he heard me talking about you and Beck! He's making kissing noises at me. I think he's pretending to be you!"

Jade clutches her phone very hard in rage.

Cat laughs some more. The line buzzes a bit again as she shifts her phone around, clearly having a grand old time. "Now he picked up the mop from the kitchen and he's pretending to kiss it. I think it's supposed to be Beck." She laughs her annoying laugh: "Haha ha ha ha! His hair really is that long now, Mike! Ha _ha_ ha! Oh! He broke it in half!"

"Ha ha_ ha_ ha!" Jade imitates her. In her regular voice, she questions, "Do you know how much I hate you?"

Cat chortles happily. Then, softly, after a pause: "That's really rude, Jade."

* * *

Well, that was that. Cat had eventually, at least, in her idiot Cat way, shown some hint of mortification at the audacity of Beck. "He can't just kiss you when he has a _girl_-friend!" she'd cried.

"I _know!_" said Jade, the force of her yell knocking two pillows off of her (an uncle stared warily, then moved his coffee a few inches further down the table).

"What if you all catch a cold now?" Cat asked speculatively.

Jade sighed.

"What does Robbie say about it?" she continued, and Jade was glad they had been on the phone so that the (stupid false worst ever) redhead couldn't see her do a double-take.

"_Shapiro?_" she said in horror, saying his name much too loudly. "Why would I tell _him?_"

"Oh," Cat had said. "I don't know. I thought you would. I mean, he's your friend too! You said he's sort of like a girl. Right? And he's a friend. Like a girl friend!" She'd giggled wildly and then gone quiet for a moment, obviously ruminating on the girl-friend-like qualities of Robbie.

"Um, yeah," Jade had said vaguely, still fairly horrified. She wasn't quite sure why the thought of telling Shapiro about anything of her and Beck unsettled her so. The boy's just been rejected, he doesn't need to know about the whole rest of the world getting kissed by their ex-boyfriends! He probably has other things to be depressed about. Like his dad, or how his hair looks at any given time. There's not really anything left between her and Beck, anyway, nothing really good, and she just doesn't - "Well, don't – don't _you_ tell him!" she'd cried, even though anyone telling Cat not to do anything was hopeless.

"I won't," Cat had said, happy and unreliable. "I think he's sort of upset at me anyway. He doesn't even want to go to the Christmas festival with me and Andre! Do you think - "

Jade had made a disgusted face into the phone, finally extricating herself from the couch. She'd meandered into the kitchen, where only Sophia and one of the aunts had been, picking at leftovers from Christmas dinner (Jeff hadn't punched anyone this year). "What, did you guys _hang out_ with him?" That probably went splendidly.

"No-ooo," Cat replied. "Andre went over earlier today. Oh, he's back from church! He said Robbie was acting sort of weird."

"What a surprise," Jade said, and collapsed at the table beside Sophia. Sophia gave her a curious look, handing her a fork. Jade stabbed at some cold stuffing. "Look, don't say anything to him about me and Beck."

Sophia hovered annoyingly, eyebrows piqued.

"Kay kay," Cat said. "Probably Beck will tell him anyway, right?"

"He better not!" Jade snarled. "It's not Shapiro's business! Look, just don't – don't say anything to him, okay? And quit rubbing Andre in his face."

"I'm_ not _rubbing Andre," Cat said sulkily. Sophia hovered some more. Jade chewed some turkey.

"Yeah, not _yet,_" she'd said sweetly, and Cat squeaked in indignation.

Then it was the next day, the day after the day after Christmas - a horrific event in itself - and she and her immediate family and whatever Sophia was head into the city to spend some Christmas money. Jeff wants to go to the toy store at the mall.

Jade waves the art flyer she's stolen from her Lit Media teacher's classroom in Dad's face. Ms Berenkowski is obsessed with that Seattle artist Spencer Shay, and last week, when they'd turned their screenplay in early, she'd burbled on about the art showing he was having over the holiday. They were – you know, right in the area, and Jade could use a good laugh.

Dad looks distressed.

"Who is this?" he asks, taking the crumpled paper and smoothing it against the hood of the car. "Spencer Shay? I didn't know you really liked abstract act, Jade."

"I wanna get something for Gepetto," she tells him.

Dad frowns down at the paper. "He did a very controversial piece of the Space Needle in 2009," he informs her. "Also, he faked his death. I read about it in the newspaper last year. People paid a lot of money for supposedly posthumous works. That doesn't sound very credible to me, Junebug."

Jade blanches in mortification. They are in _public_. Dad continues, "Where is this gallery?"

"I can take her," Sophia volunteers. Jade is still cowed into silence at Dad's stupid nickname. When had he first called her that, she wonders. Maybe when she was twelve or thirteen. Why had she _allowed_ it?

Jeff pouts. He says, "Jade, you don't want to go to the Lego Store with me?"

Jade hesitates, because actually she sort of does. But she's already crowed in glee over this stupid art thing, and told Shapiro she's known just what she was getting him for Christmas (he'd seemed fearful, and she likes him best that way).

Dad also pouts, sort of, which is gross. "I'm not certain that I can handle the mall by myself," he says.

Jeff takes his hand reassuringly. "You'll be with me, Dad," he says. "We can go to the Pretzel Factory!"

"Yes, Alan," Sophia says sweetly, in apparent glee for some reason. "You can go to the Pretzel Factory."

Dad looks more distressed.

They'd split up after that, Dad and Sophia making plans to meet for dinner. Jade took a taxi cab with her stepmother to the Seattle Community Center, where the art showcase was being held. It was the third day of it, so she was hoping she wouldn't see her teacher there, though if she did, there was potential for fun.

Maybe Berenkowski was camping out on the street. Maybe she'd like it so much she'd relocate there. It would be a scandal on The Slap!

It's nice of Sophia to take her, Jade thinks, but doesn't voice out loud. Dad would never come into a place like this. Taking note of the group of long-haired young men standing beside the front door, she thinks – or worse, he'd try to_ sanitize_ everything.

"It's nice that you're buying a present for Robert," Sophia says, and Jade rolls her eyes. At least she isn't calling him _Bobert _or something.

"It's not a big deal."

Sophia smiles around at the dirty community center. "I'm just glad you're making friends. It's nice to see you hanging out with people other than Caterina."

Jade scowls. "What's wrong with Cat?!"

"Nothing!" Sophia says quickly, sensing Jade's anger. "You know I love Cat. But diversity is … nice." She changes the subject: "What do you think you're going to get for Bobby?"

Sigh.

"I don't know," is all she replies, though, glaring down at what appears to be a bad oil painting of George Washington.

Sophia goes off to get a coffee from the concession stand (if Jade cared more, she'd tell her not to bother – coffee served at places like these always ends up being more akin to brown water – but since she doesn't care, Sophia can spend three dollars on a crappy drink if she wants to) while Jade mills around the large room, scoffing at sculptures and displays. Dear God, the man's got a whole section dedicated to Christmas works!

"Hel-_lo_," says a skinny homeless man suddenly, coming up to lean against the display table beside her. "Are you interested in artwork?"

Jade stares at the homeless man, unimpressed. Why are guys like this always coming up to her? She'd thought Seattle was supposed to be a safer city than LA. "Not really," she says.

"Oh," says the homeless man, and shakes some of his long, greasy hair out of his eyes. He is wearing a paint-splattered tee shirt with some inane logo that doesn't make sense on it. "Well, what's a girl like you doing at a gallery like this?" He's got one of those stupid employee stickers on his shirt, one of those that say, Hello My Name Is! Under it, he's scrawled: _Kiss me, I'm the artist!_

She thinks, with some dawning horror, that this might be Spencer Shay himself. She gazes with scrutiny at his lank hair and his two-day stubble. _This_ is who Ms. Berenkowski wets herself over?

"This isn't a gallery," she says. "This is a community center."

Maybe-Spencer Shay looks offended. "Today it's a gallery!" he says, and waves his arms, wacky-like. He says, "My gourd, your eyes are like a kaleidoscope! Has anyone ever painted you before?"

Jade stares.

"Are you on Splashface?" Maybe-Spencer Shay asks her. "Do you have a phone? Does it have a number? Also, are you eighteen yet?"

"No she is _not,_" snarls Sophia, materializing out of nowhere to save her. "She's here to buy a painting for a friend."

Maybe-Spencer Shay sends a besotted smile over to her stepmother. "Oh, do you know of my work?" he asks, preening. Oh my god! It is him! He leans some more against the table! "Who are you, the older sister of this lovely lady?"

Jade and Sophia growl. "I'm her mother," Sophia says coldly.

"Stepmother," Jade corrects absently.

"Stepmother," Sophia says.

Spencer Shay nods musingly. "I can totally get in on that," he says, looking like he's thinking very hard. "What exactly are you interested in?"

Jade and Sophia stare at him.

"Art-wise, I mean!" squeals Spencer Shay, and waves his arms some more. Sophia glares at him.

"Do you have anything, like … " Jade thinks, pursing her lips. "...three-dimensional?" The more likely it is to get stuck in Robbie's hair, the better.

Spencer Shay beams.

Jade and her stepmother mill around the center some more (Sophia sticks closer to her now, muttering mistrustfully about the perils of 'getting in' with American men who don't cut their hair). Jade looks around for the gaudiest work of art to surprise Shapiro with. Shay's stuff isn't actually very expensive – probably because it sucks – and Jade doesn't mind spending her Christmas money on things for other people, as long as it has the potential to amuse her greatly. She might even have enough money left over to buy her and Cat those concert tickets!

After the gallery, she and Sophia take a cab further into the city and meet up with Jeff and Dad at the mall, as they aren't done shopping yet. Jefferson is eating a corn dog and is holding two bags of candy. Dad looks very tired, and is carrying around a purple stuffed monkey.

Jade smacks at Jeff. "Where'd you get candy?" she demands. "What'd you get?" She roots through his bag. No Twizzlers?! She thought she'd taught him better.

Jefferson looks at her lovingly. "I'll share, Jade!" he says.

Jade carts the giant box with Shay's sculpture – a hanging Christmas mobile, ugliest thing she's ever seen – along with her as Jeff drags her through stores. Sophia follows them absently as Dad sits down on a bench outside, getting his bearings. In one of the department stores, Jade buys herself a new lipstick as Jeff runs around behind her, dabbing perfume samples on himself and rubbing eyeshadow from the displays on his cheeks. She hovers over the accessories, looking at hair clips. For some reason, she's thinking of Girl Shapiro and her frizzy hair and her huge always-excited eyes, and how she'd sat beside Jade on the couch and shared her cookie dough and talked about boys. Well, why not? She starts picking out hair barrettes.

Next to her, Jeff puts a feather in his hair spiky hedgehog hair. "I'm so pretty," he says. "My name is Jade!" He flips the feather. "Where's my eyeliner? Get out of my room! I'm plucking my eyebrows! Sophia!"

"Shut up!" says Jade, and hits him.

At dinner, she and Jeff play with their food, and Jeff chokes on his lamb meat and waves a rabbit head about on his fork, making it talk. Jade steals the head, wraps it up in a napkin and puts it in her purse. A nice Christmas present for Tori, she thinks. It's the whole skull! Greeks are weird. She'll put it in the fridge at home and then leave it in the girl's locker when they get back to school.

Once they get back to Uncle's Richard, the post-holiday party is still in full swing. Jade sneakily steals a glass of gin and sits on a coffee table, watching her idiot family. Uncle Richard is clearly not on his first glass of gin, and he does the Electric Slide with his wife right into the ice sculpture they've got set up.

Sophia laughs in glee, and kicks some ice away with the heel of her shoe. "Alan, are you going to dance with me?" she asks. Dad looks faintly terrified.

Jade watches the show.

* * *

She needs a few days to recover once they return home from visiting her family. Dad still has off on the 28th, and he takes her and Jeff to see a Disney movie, and they make spaghetti together for dinner. The next day, Cat takes her into LA to see an interpretive version of The Phantom of the Opera for her Christmas present. Jade goes online and sets up a reminder for herself to buy concert tickets when they go on sale next week.

After that she's got pretty much nothing to do - Cat's made plans to come over that night so that Jade can re-dye her hair, but Jade's had nothing to do since the morning. Currently, it's a little after one in the afternoon, and she's sitting at the kitchen table, under the guise of finishing up her Geometry packet that's due at the end of break, but really looking through Sophia's fashion magazines. Maybe she should dye her hair back to brown. Maybe blue highlights again. She does like the green, though. Cat says it's festive.

She wonders if she can get away with calling Robbie – she's only seen him the once since Christmas break has begun, the last day of school, when he'd come over to watch Halloween with her. They'd been celebrating the turning in of their screenplay.

She sort of has this rule where – well, it's a little dumb, but she'll never actually _call_ him to hang out. He's not, you know, so bad, but if he wants to do something or see her, he can put forth all the effort. To call him would be an admittance that she wants his presence around in some manner, and that's really not necessary, you know, because she doesn't care either way, _seriously_.

It's just that she's really _bored, _you know_?_ She's going to see Cat tonight, but really, how much can one person take of just Cat? And what, is she just going to call up Beck and be like, "Hey, want to hang out and not make out? You can show me the pictures of you and your new girlfriend that you just posted to The Slap."

No thanks.

Anyway, Shapiro's phoned her three times since break has started, and she hasn't answered back. That's rude, you know. She should at least show some common courtesy and call the kid back. They should maintain a professional working environment. That's not clingy or anything, it's not like she wants to see him or something, right?

Okay, well, she can call him back. It's not like she's going to whine and plead with him to hang out. He's texted her about her Christmas present, so they might as well get that out of the way. Oh, unless he's busy. It is the day before New Year's Eve. Maybe he's planning for a party or something. Maybe he has plans.

Ha ha! Yeah right! And why is she ruminating so much on calling _Robbie_? She's being a dolt. She dials his number. She wonders if he'll be irritated at her for not calling him back for four days. Beck would always get upset if she'd forget to call him. Cat takes it as a personal affront. Well, it's not like -

Shapiro answers on the third ring, though. He's not annoyed. "Hi Jade!" His voice, a little tinny, bugles happily out at her.

Jade grunts in greeting.

"How was your holiday?" he politely inquires.

Jade grunts again.

"Oh yeah? What happened? Tell me about it."

Jade stretches out across the kitchen table (Sophia, moving in and out of the room with her home decorating books, sends her a brief glare, but doesn't come over to tap at her elbows) and gives him a few details. She tells him about her uncle's drunk dancing and getting a headache from cigar smoke. Jeff sticking stringbeans up his nose. Dad's eternal chagrin at Jade eating chocolate out of the advent calender a day early.

"My Christmas wasn't too bad either," Shapiro says, and Jade can actually, like, from all the way across town,_ feel _him gearing up to prattle on.

"I didn't ask you about any details," she interrupts, but then lets him go on anyway.

"Well, then Tori came over - "

"Oh, how nice, a Christmas Tori," Jade sneers, briefly livid at the mention of Vega.

Shapiro makes a terrible pun about the three wise men and how they'd only brought frankincense and myrrh and no jade over to him. Jade feels another small part of her brain die.

"Wait," she says slowly, "what? Shapiro, the wise men didn't bring_ jade_. They brought _gold! _You fucking Jew. Stop trying."

"Oh yeah," says Robbie complacently. "I knew it sounded weird. Oh well. Anyway, I would have wanted you to come over, but I knew you were busy."

"I don't care anyway!" Jade snarls.

"I know," says Robbie without missing a beat. "Um, want to come over now, though? I can give you your present. Oh, I finished reading The Shining! It was better than the movie."

She feels mildly pleased with him at this. Of course it was better than the movie! Also, he's invited her over, just as she's expected him to. Predictable nerd. "I guess so," she drawls, as though she's just so busy and needs to consider it. "I need to shower first, though. Jeff got Magic Marker on my face."

She probably really does need to stop pretending to be be one of the undead and come tiptoeing up behind him. The kid was just defending himself. Anyway, she'd put him in headlock for a few minutes for it.

"Will you want lunch, Miss West?" Robbie asks. Oh god, he is _such a dork._

Also: "You don't have to feed me, Shapiro!" Jade hollers. "What do you think I am, fucking Cookie Monster or something? That ghost from Ghostbusters that just fucking eats constantly and shits ectoplasm? What, I can't stop eating for two hours? I'm so fucking disgusting! I'm so fat! You can't bear to look at me so you just make me a sandwich instead?"

She pauses to think. "Actually, yeah, I'd like a sandwich."

* * *

After she showers and does her hair, Sophia lets her drive her Mazda over to Robbie's. In addition to needing insurance, Jade also needs a new fuel pump, so she couldn't exactly take her car out anyway. But she's babysat Jeff a lot this week with minimal complaining, so she supposes her par – she supposes that Dad and Sophia feel like they owe her.

Shapiro's finally gotten himself a haircut, she notes when he opens the door, and he looks much better for it. It's a bit shorter than he usually gets it cut, the ends of his hair just beginning to curl. He looks wildly different – she's actually surprised. He almost – like – well – he actually doesn't look_ that bad_.

She's mortified at herself. _Not that bad? _What's_ wrong_ with her? God, she might start _complimenting_ him or something soon!

At least, she consoles herself, he's wearing possibly the ugliest sweater she's ever seen in existence. It's neon-orange, too big for him, and sort of fuzzy. The zipper going up the front is exaggeratedly large and shiny. He looks a bit like a sad deflated pumpkin. At least there's that.

"Rob Rob-star," she greets him, slipping past him into the house before he can even invite her. Shapiro makes a companionable little noise and closes the door behind her. "That a new sweater?"

Shapiro beams at her. Some people might actually say he has a nice smile, you know, especially now that his frizzy hair isn't framing his face like a distressed lion's would.

Some people, you know. Not her. She doesn't know who those people are or where they could possibly be on the planet, but they're probably out there somewhere. "Yes, it is!" Robbie says, happy. "My mother - "

"Yikes," she interrupts sweetly, and sweeps past him into the hall. "Hey, where's your sister? Yo, Pigtails!"

Jess gasps and preens over the hair barrettes Jade's picked out. She hasn't bothered to wrap these, and a few have come undone from the little package, but Jess doesn't seem to mind as Jade digs through her purse for them.

"Thanks, Jade!" she says, beaming at her in the same way sort of annoyingly emotional way that Robbie does whenever she's done something that might be misconstrued as nice. "You're the coolest!"

"Whatever," says Jade. Jess shakes with happiness for a moment more and then thunders up the steps, probably to go to her room and spend an hour with her hair, as girls do.

Shapiro looks a bit puzzled. "When did you and my sister start trading hair products?" he asks her.

Jade gazes back at him, wondering if he knows at times how dense and dumb he is. It's not like his sister can talk to _him_ about hair products, can she? Just _look _at him! She remembers how Jessica had sat close to her on the sofa near Thanksgiving and prattled on about any and everything, asking her about boyfriends and how she gets her hair to be so shiny.

Jade's seen their mother that one time. She doesn't think that Girl Shapiro is that much like her brother – that is, a secretive mess – but for all purposes she doesn't have a father, and her mother is – well, that way. Surely she has girlfriends, like Jade has Cat, but sometimes that isn't enough, really.

All she says, though, is, "She's lonely." Shapiro stares dumbly, so she elaborates, "Don't you remember being twelve and awkward?"

Shapiro just looks at her quietly for a moment, and she doesn't know what _that _look is at all, which is unnerving. Then he just smiles and says, "Uh, I remember being sixteen and awkward."

Jade laughs before she remembers not to be too nice to him.

"Your present's in my room," he tells her.

She snorts, turning to the staircase. "Is this how you lure girls into your bed, Shapiro? With the promise of gifts? Do you have candy, too? You perv."

Robbie turns a rather brilliant shade of red (clashing horribly with his ugly sweater, which makes her feel much calmer about thinking his hair looked nice earlier) and squeaks out indignantly, following her up the steps.

She collapses unceremoniously on his bed as he hovers around, awkward as usual. "Open mine first," she commands, pushing the huge box that Jeff and her stepmother have garishly wrapped in Charlie Brown paper towards him. She watches as Robbie hesitantly sits beside her and carefully peels back the wrapping paper and opens the box. His eyebrows shoot up his forehead and his purses his lips tactfully as he pulls out the hanging mobile, adorned with red and green noses.

Jade grins. She can't hold it in much longer. It's just too much. His_ face. _She hollers, "_MERRY SNIFFMAS,_" and dissolves into laughter.

Robbie grins too, and he laughs a little, shaking his head. "I'll add it to my collection. Thanks, Jade."

Jade hums noncommittally. "What'd you get me? Can I eat it?"

"Um," Shapiro mutters, already digging through his closet, "I guess if you want?" He waves a flat little package in front of her, wrapped in snowman gift paper, and she knows right away it's a CD. "Factory wrapped," he says, probably seeing her face.

"What is it?" she demands, taking it from his outstretched hand. She shakes it unnecessarily, and Shapiro laughs again. He's a little pink now, like he's nervous or something, looking around the room at things that aren't her.

"I don't think you have it," he says as she begins tearing at the paper.

God help her, if he's bought her a stupid Beatles CD - !

It's not any of his horrible old-man music, though. It's a Hole album. She knows which it is as soon as she tears off enough of the paper and sees the back of the case. It's their compilation album, and she's never seen it in any record stores. She has all or most of the songs, anyway, downloaded, but she just hasn't gotten around to buying it online, and she doesn't know how – well, how he's known that she wouldn't have it.

"No shit!" she cries happily, peeling the rest of the wrapping paper away. It's not even _used_. She'll be the first person to ever play this beautiful, wonderful, perfect CD.

Jade adores CDs and records. It's not that she doesn't love her PearPod and bring it with her everywhere religiously, but – CDs are something tangible and _there,_ and you can put them in your car, and PearPods don't come with booklets with liner notes! Jade flips through the CD booklet loving, tracing her fingers across scrawled lyrics and pictures. She wonders if Shapiro would be weirded out if she kissed it and wept over it a little. Well, she can do that later, blasting it in her room.

"Thanks Robbie," she blurts out without meaning to. She flops over onto her back and holds the CD booklet above her head, preening. "This has all their b-sides." Oh my God! The demo version of 'Miss World!' Kurt Cobain is playing guitar on this! She sighs dreamily. She tells Shapiro, who looks pleased, "Kurt Cobain sings on some of the songs."

"Oh yeah?" says Shapiro, sounding like he's indulging her.

Jade smiles up at the booklet, not caring. She sighs again, reading the track listing. "Why would they put a song from the unplugged session on here? Well, that was never an official release, you know."

"No, I did not know that," Shapiro says conversationally, and situates himself on the bed next to her.

"It should have been," Jade says severely. "No one gives this band enough credit. They played a Duran Duran cover during the show. That's a dorky band, you must like them, right?"

"Um - "

"Anyway, I have that CD burned too." Jade interrupts him, thinks aloud. "Not Duran Duran. Unplugged. It might be in your car. Did you know that Hole's played like five Nirvana covers? I don't think Kurt any covered any of Courtney's songs. Did you know - "

Shapiro fluffs his pillow, getting comfortable. He lays on his bed beside her and lets her talk for a while. She criticizes his bedsheets and talks about Courtney Love. Shapiro remains nonplussed. He is, she thinks again, a very good pet.

Christmas break is a wonderful thing.

**Author's Note: It took me so long to publish this chapter because I hate it? I mean, there are many moments in it that I like and enjoyed writing, but it doesn't move very much forward, does it? Oh well. Character development, though. Jade may hate her stepmother the teeniest bit less and wants to spend time with Robbie, and Cat is Cat. Also explains why, in TYSW, Jade is friends with Spencer on Splashface. ;)**


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

One day in early January – the first week back to school, actually – she's in the library with Cat, Harris, and Shapiro after last period. She and Dork have gotten their screenplay back and it's been approved. Jade is looking through the teacher comments and preening. Shapiro is treating himself to an apple – with gusto. She gives him a warning glower as he crunches away happily. He sends her a guilty look back, then sneaks a glance over at the librarian, still busy at her desk. Cat's reading a Judy Blume book, and Harris is – well, she guesses he's there because Cat's there.

It's slightly bothersome. At least Harris has some semblance of decorum, though, and isn't being too disgusting with Cat since Shapiro's present.

He doesn't really show her the same courtesy, though. Earlier, putting their books away, Andre had backed Cat up against her locker and slowly started kissing her. Jade had practically thrown up everywhere - thank God he'd stopped before Shapiro had shown up. Like, she really doesn't need to get sick at school. They've only been back for two days, and she's still getting used to the horrors of being up at 7 AM.

Harris looks fidgety. "Babe," he says to Cat, "are you ready to go? Can we go? Just check the book out."

"I'm not allowed to check library books out anymore," Cat says, turning her page without looking up. "Jade knows why."

Jade tries not to look guilty. Shapiro shoots her a sardonic little look, and she scowls at him.

Harris fidgets some more. He doesn't like the library. It's too quiet for him.

"Babe," he whines again. Jesus Christ, they've been dating for like two seconds, and he's already pulling the_ babe_ card! It makes Jade sick. Shapiro also looks sort of wilty at the terminology, so to save her sanity, Jade reaches over and snatches up Cat's book in a quick motion. She shoves it into her messenger bag.

"Consider it on loan," she says. "I'll come over later and give it to you."

Cat looks longingly at Jade's messenger bag, but then seems to find it a suitable deal. "Kay kay," she says in a subdued tone. She turns to Andre. "Do you want to go now?"

"Yes," says Harris emphatically. "You wanna come over again?"

Cat nods happily, bouncing up, and Jade leans back and watches the two gather their books up. Harris puts his arm around Cat's shoulder once she's put her bookbag on.

"Later, guys," he says, and shoots what Jade supposes he thinks to be a covert guilty little look over to Shapiro, who tries not to look so much liked a withered dandelion and smiles back.

"Bye Robbie!" Cat chirrups happily. "Will you call me, Jade?"

"Whatever," Jade says in affirmation, and Cat looks happy. Jade watches them leave, then turns back to their screenplay, trying to ignore Shapiro's hangdog expression. He'd been so much better over winter break, she thinks dismally.

Eventually Shapiro turns towards her, broken briefly from whatever reverie he's obviously been stuck in. "Jade?" he asks.

Good lord, he annoys her. He always has to say her name – for emphasis, for attention, out of some weird sense of politeness. He can never just say "Hey" or simply ask his stupid questions. It's always, "Jade, why" this , or "Jade, how" that. And why does he have to be wearing that sweater? It's grey and blue striped, and it looks soft. It's just - she sort of likes stripes, okay? Beck rarely wore them. Anyway, he's so stupid. Stupid and annoying. Annoying and -

"Yeah?" is all she says.

Shapiro looks out at her from behind his stupid glasses, his eyes big and sad for some reason. "What do you love about Beck?" he asks.

Jade stares blankly. "Excuse me?"

Shapiro flushes. "I mean – I guess – what _did_ you?"

"I don't get you," Jade says slowly, wondering if she should be more pissed off at him for asking. It's sort of a personal question, you know. "You wanna know why I loved Beck?"

"I – I guess so." He falters. "I mean - " he glances away again, looking a bit forlornly at the space where Cat and Andre had been - "I mean, you … well, Beck has girls that like him. And Andre has girls that like him. And I can't – I mean, I can't – I don't know how. I don't know how to get people to like me. Something's wrong with me, I guess."

He looks overwhelming depressed and smaller than she knows he is, sitting there looking at her through his huge glasses and balling up the sleeves of his sweater between his fists. Jade feels sort of bad for him, and – above all else - annoyed. "There's nothing wrong with you," she says decisively. "You just – you just haven't – I don't know, found the right person. You haven't found your lobster yet."

Shapiro looks utterly baffled and slightly scared of her, which has always been a good thing, but right now it irritates her. "My … my what?"

Jade makes a frustrated face. "Your – haven't you ever watched – your _lobster,_ Shapiro! Your, I don't know, your perfect person!" She thinks hard, then adds brilliantly, "Your soulmate!"

Shapiro stares blankly, then clears his throat. He says slowly, "So … you're saying … Beck was your, um, Beck was your lobster?"

Jade scowls very much. "_Obviously not_," she sneers. She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms, glaring at him. "Hell, he's – well, we're in high school, it's not like we're going to find, like, someone to _marry_, I guess – I don't know, I guess he was, like, a – a crayfish or something."

This is why no one should ever try to discuss any sort of feelings with her, she thinks, because she just goes insane and starts yelling about crustaceans.

"Oh," says Robbie, still looking very befuddled and confused. He gears himself to resignation of her knowledge and leans forward a little on the library desk. "Um. All right. But you – how do you find, um, a crayfish? How do you know it's a crayfish you're looking for and not a, like, a sardine? And how do you get the – the crayfish to like you?"

Jade feels the beginnings of a migraine settle in. She closes her eyes briefly and puts her hands against her temples. "Is this about Cat?" she asks once she's felt calmed enough to open her eyes again.

Robbie looks upset and guilty, and he glances once more at the part of the table where Cat and Andre had been sitting. "No," he says in an unconvincing tone. "I mean, not really. I mean, I don't like Cat like that anymore. I can't, right? I just – you know, when I see her – it just reminds me, that, you know. She doesn't." He pauses painfully for a moment to collect himself. "She doesn't like me. I don't know – I mean, if Cat's a crayfish - "

"I don't think Cat is a crayfish," Jade says absently.

Shapiro bites his stupid bottom lip. Then he gives her a tiny, sly smile (he manages to do this, somehow, while still looking sad – she's come to realize that Shapiro always looks sad in some way, which is also irritating), and he says, "If Cat's a _cat_fish - "

Oh god. She hates it when he starts using puns, really.

"Cat is nothing under the sea," Jade intones severely.

Shapiro frowns. "So … what are you saying?"

Jade waves her hands, annoyed. "I'm saying Cat's not seafood!" she shouts, and across the room, the librarian shoots them a dark and puzzled look. "I mean – you, just, you have to look for someone, like, similar to you, and you aren't – um, a crayfish? No, I mean, you shouldn't have to look. If you, um." Jade thinks very hard. "Just, you'll just, find a fish. And the fish, um, will like you."

Shapiro looks utterly baffled again. God, is it so hard for the boy to imagine another fish liking him? Also: god, her life.

"I mean," Jade continues. "These things just happen, right? You can't go, like, looking for crayfish. The crayfish just find you."

She senses a table of sophomores staring at them with interest.

"Okay," says Shapiro doubtfully.

"Like me and Beck," she adds helpfully.

Shapiro twists his face up at her in that befuddled way he has. She notes with horror that it's actually a look he usually reserves for Cat. "So … " he says slowly. "What did … ? I mean, you and Beck - ?"

Jade growls, because he really won't drop it. "I guess what I liked about Beck," she says, and thinks. "I guess, at first, I just liked that he liked me. It's nice to be wanted, you know?"

"Yeah," says Shapiro, and looks dismal, because he probably doesn't know what it's like.

"I mean – there was more, later, you know. Once you get to know someone. But really, it was just that he liked me. And he wouldn't go away."

"Oh," says Shapiro, and looks more depressed, because he liked Cat and didn't go away and she still doesn't care.

"Yeah," Jade says unhelpfully. She doesn't feel it is necessary to add: _And then he did go away._

Shapiro frowns down at his notebook speculatively, and they're both quiet for a minute. He says, "You know, I don't really like seafood."

"Me either," says Jade. "Aside from popcorn shrimp." She thinks. "Can we go get popcorn shrimp?"

"Yeah," says Shapiro readily, "let's go." He closes his notebook.

The librarian glares at them as they leave.

* * *

Time continues to do that very annoying thing that it does, which is to pass by.

The rest of the week floats along. Jade deals with the dismal horror of looking up from her locker to see Andre's tongue in Cat's mouth, or vice versa, depending on the class period they've come from. She avoids Beck again. He's never really without Alison at school, which makes her feel – weird.

That day during winter break, when Shapiro had come over, he'd drug her to Beck's RV with him. Alison had been there, too, and from the bright smile she'd sent over to her and Robbie as they'd walked in, Jade knew that she was unaware of the events that had transpired a few days beforehand. She didn't know – well,_ she_ wasn't going to tell Ali what had happened. Alison. She wasn't going to tell Alison. Jade had denied Beck, so it wasn't her business. He could mess things up on his own now.

Beck had watched her rather carefully regardless. Shapiro was happy and oblivious, presenting Beck his Christmas gift with gusto. He'd gotten Alison a little violin keychain, too.

"Your jeans are really cool, Jade," Alison squeaked at her.

Her jeans were grey plaid. Sophia'd let her pick them out at the mall for a Christmas gift, which had been really cool, as she hadn't thought she was going to get any presents ever after last year's film / Prom expenses debacle.

Alison just being there and sitting on Beck's bed and looking happy and looking happy to see her, when Beck's tongue had been in her mouth last week and he'd been saying_ I mean, it's not serious,_ made her feel – bad. Bad. Something not quite akin to pity or guilt, but … disappointment? Maybe. Yeah. Disappointed, in Beck for being that way, and disappointed in herself, for participating. She knew Alison liked Beck. She remembers the way the girl had looked over to him at that Christmas party. Maybe he'd like her that way, too, if he let himself.

She didn't think that Ali would give him headaches like she did.

Anyway, so there's those things: the Cat and Andre Mouth Wars, the Curious Case of Beck Buttface.

There's Tori, who keeps trying to engage her in conversation at lunch about whether or not she should cut her hair – does she honestly think Jade _cares?_ Actually, secretly, Jade really does think that, cheekbones or not, most of Tori's power lies in her long, flowing locks, so she tells the girl, sweetly and emphatically, "Yes. Cut it. Maybe get a pixie cut. It'll be fab."

There's Robbie, set on disturbing her by looking _sort of good well you know not entirely terrible_ in his new collection of what she guesses are Hanukkah sweaters, and being a little droopier than usual, in part due to the Cat and Andre Mouth Wars, but mostly because he and his sister are fighting. Shapiro is really adamant about going to visit his father every weekend. Jess is not (Jade doesn't think she would be either, to be honest). She hadn't wanted to go for New Years, or she's been rude, or they fought anyhow – Shapiro had sort of been mumbling at Jade when he told her, and the subject of his father always made her a little uncomfortable because it's such a weird and sad thing, she really has no idea what to say to him ever about it – anyway, Jess had yelled at him, he'd yelled back, and, he confides in Jade sadly, "I called her …. the … the _b word._"

Jade makes sure her face is perfectly blank as she straightens up and closes her locker to look at him. "_Blonde?_"

Robbie gives her a dour look.

Jade chews on her lip. "Not big-boned? Shapiro, you rat."

"Jade! No! You know what word!"

She keeps looking at him with big eyes because she wants him to say it, she'll be so thrilled if he says it. She'll give him ten extra cool points if he says it.

Robbie sighs in guilt and resignation. "I called her a … a … I called her a _bitch._" He whispers the last word in misery, hunching his shoulders.

Jade laughs at him, trying to break him out of it, because she doesn't want him to look like that. There are far worse things than saying a mean word to your sister, she thinks. "You're lucky we ain't in Wisconsin, Shapiro," she says. "I hear they throw you in the clinker for that."

"Oh, shut up!" squeals Shapiro, rolling his eyes. _Ooh!_ He told her to shut up! He's been getting so _mouthy_ lately. Next he'll be telling her to shut the _heck_ up! Oh, rev me up, Shapiro.

Jade snorts, holding her hands up in surrender. "Well, sounds to me like she's being a bitch. What can ya do?"

Shapiro looks around wildly, like he's afraid they're going to get detention for Jade not whispering a swearword, even though most of the students have already cleared out for the day and there are no teachers in sight. Once he's satisfied that Sikowitz isn't going to burst out of a locker and chain them to Helen's desk, he turns back to her, shrugging a little. "Nothing, I guess. Just, she's never really been mad at me for so long before."

"Yeah," Jade says in a musing tone, but she's really not musing at all – she just doesn't know what to say to that, either. Jeff doesn't get mad at her, or if he does, he doesn't stay angry for longer than five minutes. Cat is sort of like a sister (you know, like how Juliette Lewis was a sister in The Other Sister, that is), and she doesn't get mad at Jade either.

Shapiro doesn't look like he wants to talk about it much anyway, though. He finally, finally closes his locker, clutching his beloved Bio Lab notes closely. She's glad he's seen fit to leave Rex at home today. "Ready to go interview some freshman?" he asks brightly. They're holding tryouts for actors in their Lit Media movie today. She and Shapiro have already bribed and bargained their way to the front of the list for camera equipment, and they went and picked out their tech shit yesterday.

Now, though: freshman. Jade tries not to make too horrible of a face. "Ready as I'll ever be," she says, which is_ huge containment_ on her part, and she and Shapiro walk down the hall together towards the gym. "Let's scout us some mongrels."

* * *

"Do you like Creedence Clearwater?" she demands of her father one day after school. Dad's sitting at the kitchen table with his lab coat off and his crossword puzzle in front of him. Cat is off somewhere kissing Andre, and Shapiro has chained himself to his desk to study for a Calculus test, so she's on her own this afternoon.

"A bit," says Dad. He pulls his glasses down on his face and scratches at his bald spot before pushing them back atop his head. Jade rolls her eyes – he's so very obviously a nerd. Why can't he get Rogaine or something? It wouldn't help the grey, but they can take it one step at a time.

"Robbie likes them," she says, sitting down across from him with her glass of juice.

Dad rolls his eyes up slowly to meet hers. "Who?"

"Rob_bie_!" she says, annoyed. God, he can't remember anything! He knows too much about business and science – there's no room for anything else. "He's in my Lit Media class this year? Beck's friend? Robot-o. Four Eyes. Puppet-Boy."

"Oh, yes, Geppeto," says Dad in understanding. He pencils in a six letter word, horizontally.

"Yeah," Jade says. "What's that song, that goes, something, something, with my own eyes, something, coming right at me from the other side?"

Dad raises his eyebrows. "That's very vague," he tells her demurely.

"Well that's all I can remember!" She hums a few lines of the bass for him.

"Maybe Walk on the Water," he offers after he thinks for a moment.

"Oh. Well, that's what he was singing today."

Dad's eyebrows stay raised. "Was he?" he asks mildly.

"Yeah. It's not that bad."

"It's a good song," he says. Jade makes a noncommittal noise. Dad just keeps looking at her, a little oddly, for some reason. Then he clears his throat. "That song is off their 1968 self-titled album," he tells her, sounding like a walking sales ad. He pencils in another few letters on his crossword. "Perhaps you should illegally download it."

"Yeah," says Jade. "Yeah, maybe I should."

Dad erases some more, starting to frown again. He likes to do his crossword after work to unwind. She wonders if she's bugging him. "What's a seven letter word for Zen enlightenment?" he asks her without looking up, though.

Guess not.

Jade rolls her eyes. "Nirvana, duh!" she says. She points down to the shirt she's wearing. Kurt in a blue dress and a pound of eyeliner.

"Oh!" says Dad. "Of course it is."

"Jesus!"

Dad smiles. "That's not Buddhist at all, darling."

Jade makes sure to groan loudly. "You're such a loser."

"Why, thank you," says Dad absently. He pencils in his word.

"I'm just letting you know," says Jade. She rises to go upstairs and takes her glass of juice with her. Dad 'hmm's at her retreating form, which annoys her.

She goes into her bedroom and she downloads some Creedence. Why not?


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty- Three**

After school, she's at Robbie's house, as usual. She's editing his English essay for him while he makes her a grilled cheese sandwich. They've successfully cast the lead for The Sun Dog, and the sandwich is a reward to her for not causing the kid any physical harm yet.

"You use run-on sentences too much," she growls, separating one into three.

"I know," says Robbie, very studiously, by the stove. He is making the sandwich with three different cheeses. It will be very fancy, he has told her. She looks up slowly and watches him warily. He still has his scarf around his neck. It's green-and-black, and he's been wearing it all week. He's very happy about the scarf for some reason. It's striped, though, so she hasn't said anything nasty about it. Yet.

"Don't put too much pepper," she warns him. "I don't like too much pepper."

"I know," he says again. He flips the bread.

Jade leans over the table at him. What is he grinding into that pan?! "Ew," she says. "Is that garlic?"

"You'll like it," Robbie tells her without looking up.

"Hm," she says darkly, and then crosses out a whole sentence. He doesn't need to restate until the conclusion. "Why can you even make this? Aren't you allergic to _every_thing in that?"

Shapiro turns briefly to look back at her. "It's just a sandwich," he says. "I don't know why you _can't_ make it."

Jade glowers. Robbie turns quickly back to the stove in fear.

"I can make other things," she tells him. "I can make mac and cheese! I can make really good soup." Grumpily, she adds, "Ask Cat."

Robbie may be smiling. "I know," he says for a third time. He adds, "My dad used to cook a lot."

"Oh yeah?" she says, sort of interested despite herself. Shapiro rarely mentions his dad, even though she - _knows _now.

"Yes," says Robbie shortly. He flips the bread again. He says, "He taught me how to make some things. They were always working a lot, you know, my parents."

"Yeah," says Jade. So are Dad and Sophia.

"They said it's good to know these things. My sister was, you know, just a baby. I used to watch her when I was ten."

Ten is too young to babysit, she thinks. It makes her feel a bit sad, in a way. No wonder's he's such a weirdo. Boys should be out playing soccer or football at that age, not babysitting all the time.

"Sisters need to eat," continues Robbie brilliantly, pushing her sandwich around in the pan. "She likes tomato and cheese sandwiches." Okay … so for some reason he's under the assumption that Jade cares what sort of sandwiches Jess (who is still being a little witch) likes. Cool? Also, ew, tomatoes. Jade will only eat the little cherry tomatoes, mostly because they are bite-sized, and she likes that. "We used to eat them after I'd walk her home from preschool. I had to stand on a stool to reach the stovetop."

Jade stares. "Wait," she says in disbelief. "You ate bread?"

Robbie smiles again. She can see the curl of it on the side of his face. "I can eat bread," he says, amused. "It just makes me sick. I didn't go to the doctor and get diagnosed with a gluten allergy til I was eleven."

"Oh," she says.

"I probably developed a milk allergy when I was seven," continues Robbie thoughtfully, like she's asked about that. "Yeah, I think I was seven. You know, allergies can develop late in life. Are you allergic to anything?"

"Happiness," says Jade, putting her pen down.

Robbie grins. He puts her sandwich on a plate, gives her a can of soda from the fridge (it's not pineapple, but it will do). He sits across from her, watching. She eyes the sandwich warily. "Did you know that no one's bodies can completely process milk?" he asks her.

Oh, here we go. "Nope," she says. Hesitantly, she bites into the sandwich. The garlic _is_ good. Shapiro actually doesn't elaborate, so she says, "How come?" (Why had she asked that? What's wrong with her? Is he conditioning her to seek out pointless knowledge? Oh my god, would he _do that?!_ Shapiro is craftier than she gives him credit for.)

"I don't know," says Shapiro, surprising her. He fiddles absently with his torn shirtsleeve. "Probably due to the bacteria. It depends on the type of milk it is, too, you know. Cows fed with organic grass will have better milk." He thinks about it. "Do you think drinking milk is animal cruelty?"

Jade thinks about it too. "Nah," she says. "The cows'll explode if you don't milk them."

Shapiro looks alarmed.

"I read it in a Stephen King book," she adds.

"Oh," says Robbie, still looking upset for the cows. Then he grins a little. "You think he had to do extensive research for that?"

The thought of Stephen King going to farms and petting cows makes her grin too. "I hope so," she says.

She eats some more of her sandwich while Shapiro rinses off the pan and puts it into the dishwasher. He goes to the fridge and gets himself a glass of juice, then returns to the table, sitting down across from her. He looks expectantly at her for a few moments, not saying anything.

"What?" she crabs, elegantly wiping some crumbs from her face.

Robbie blinks at her. "Nothing, I guess," he says. He watches her some more. Jade glowers at him, drinks some of her soda. After another moment: "Hey Jade?"

Oh, Christ. Here it comes.

"_What?_"

"Nothing." Shapiro pushes his glasses up on his face, still looking. Jade rolls her eyes heavily, returning her gaze to his papers, but then he asks, "So – you. You've been living with your dad for a while, huh?"

She spares him a wary glance. "Yup." She slurps her soda.

"Oh." Shapiro folds his arms and leans against the table, resting his head atop them. He looks over at her. He doesn't even say anything about the slurping! "Hmm."

"_What?_"

"Nuh – I'm just thinking."

Jade rolls her eyes again. "Yeah, got that, I can smell the burnt wires, Robot."

Robbie rolls his eyes too, and tries to swallow down his smile. "Do you – hmm. Do you like your dad?"

Somehow she restrains herself from rolling her eyes at him a second time. "Of course I like my dad," she snaps. Before she can help herself: "Don't you like yours?"

Shapiro looks a bit cowed, and she feels badly. "Yeah," he says. "Of course I do." Again, "I'm just thinking."

Jade gives out a heavy sigh. Clearly he wants to talk, and he wants her to extract something from him. Why can't he ever just come out and say what he wants? She wonders if he knows how tiresome it is, sometimes, to be his friend.

Also, they're _friends._ Gross. She stabs hard at his paper with her marker. "Thinking what," she says resentfully.

Robbie rubs at his forehead a little. "Things."

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Vincent Price, Freddy Kruger, and Jason Voorhees. Help her.

"Do you – do you have a favorite memory of him?"

She looks up, a little surprise. "Huh?"

He flushes. "I'm just – I'm just curious. I mean, nevermind. It's stupid."

"Um." She pushes the papers back, sits up a little to look at him with more irritation. "I guess? I have good memories of him. I also have a lot of stupid ones. Why d'you wanna know?"

"I don't," he says quickly. "I mean, you don't have to tell me. I'm just thinking."

"I don't – mind," she mutters. He just looks back at her, his neck a little pink now, and he rubs at it with the hand that isn't propping his neck up. "What about you?"

"Me?" he asks dumbly, like he has no clue what they're even talking about.

"Yeah, you. What's your – like, your favorite memory of your – family. Favorite thing about your dad."

"Oh." He drops her gaze. "Well, I don't know." Absently, he rubs at his mouth, and she watches it. He's got big lips, sort of like a girl. It's kind of pretty, which is weird. She wonders what he'd do if she told him he could be sort of pretty. Probably be insulted.

"There's gotta be something," she says instead, putting more aggravation into her voice than is probably necessary.

Shapiro shrugs a little, letting his arms fall to the table once more. He's quiet for a moment, thinking. "Maybe camping. Our last camping trip?"

Wow, the indigenous Robbie Shapiro, out in nature. Interesting. How had he survived in a less-than-sterile environment? "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he says musingly. "We used to go every year, out to the mountains? In spring, before our allergies got too bad." She guesses that the _our_ is a collective of the whole family, and tries not to smirk. He stays quiet for another moment, and she remains mum as well, waiting to see if there's more. There's always more.

Finally, he says, "My mom hated it so much, but she'd always go with us – this was before she worked so much. It was always just, a lot of fun, I guess. We were never really together all that much. The last time we went, we got my mom to go fishing with us." He grins a little, remembering, and that looks nice on him. "A catfish flew out of the water and stabbed her in the leg."

"_What?_" she says before she can help herself, snorting.

Shapiro grins again, eyes rolling up to look at her. "They're prickly!" he says. "The – the spine. It got stuck in her leg. So there was just my mom screaming with a whole catfish wriggling on her."

Jade might grin too, but probably not, as grinning isn't really a thing she does, you know.

"It was really funny," Robbie continues, picking at the end of his scarf. "I mean, we were worried about her, but it was just – funny. Can you picture – I mean, can you picture my mom in shorts and shrieking?"

She can't.

"I was like ten or eleven. My dad had to chase her around. She still has this little circle scar where the catfish stuck her. Then she wouldn't come out of the tent for the rest of the weekend. My sister's still scared of lakes. When we went back home, my mom went to the doctor, and made him give her like every shot ever."

"Wow," says Jade, snorting again.

"Yeah," says Robbie. He smiles. "And that marks our last camping trip for forever."

"Did you catch the catfish?"

"Nah," he says. "It flipped back in the water and swam away." He thinks about it. "That water was so polluted anyway. I can't believe they let us swim in that!" Now he looks pensive, transforming back into the Robbie she knows and generally tolerates. "Maybe that's why my immune system is so week. The _bacteria _in that lake, Jade, is - " he catches her look, and, shockingly, cuts himself off. He gives her a little apologetic smile. "And, shutting up."

Then there's just that floating over them, the hanging words of what was probably Shapiro's last good memory of his family. Jade lowers her gaze once more back down to the paper, because it makes her feel weird to look at him right now. Dumbly, she tells the paper, "Well, that's – um, nice. A nice memory."

"Yeah," Shapiro says contemplatively into the tabletop. He says, "What about you?"

Aw, crud. "What about me what?" she asks, playing dumb.

"You – what's your favorite – um, what's a good memory of you and your dad? Or, or, um, your family."

She sends him a halfhearted glower. "Why do you wanna know?"

He looks back, flustered. "I told you!"

"Yeah," she says musingly. "I guess you did." She chews on the cap of her marker, which she tries not to do so much anymore in Robbie's presence, because he usually starts screaming about germs and won't stop. But he's quiet now though, waiting, too. "Um, I don't really know."

She lets herself think about it, because he looks so expectant. It wouldn't hurt much, would it, to tell him something?

She came to live with Dad a bit after she'd turned nine, just as summer had been starting. She'd cried when he'd come to St Anna's to collect her. The thought of this man being her father – well, anyone, really – had been sort of horrifying.

"I don't want to go with him," she'd told Sister Frances. "He's _old._"

Dad – well, he hadn't been Dad then, had he? - appeared upset, and she still remembers the sad and curious look he'd given her, like she was some sort of entirely new species that he was just discovering. "I am not old," he'd said. "I'm forty-four."

The first year had been the hardest, because this man was so proper and scared of her and she just really wanted to be with her mother, and Mom rarely called when she said she would. Her school records were all messed up from her missing so much of it and going through group homes, and she hadn't had enough credits to advance into fourth grade. She had told Cat a little_ little_ about this, and Cat always says she'd had to repeat the fourth grade, but it had really been third, and Jade never bothers to correct her.

There was a screaming baby in Dad's house pretty soon after she'd got there, and that – that was his _real _kid, you know, the one he had known about, had wanted. She had her own bedroom here and that was weird and scary, she'd never slept by herself in a room before, and she'd have nightmares that would wake her up and she'd have to walk up and down the halls for hours until the sun started to come up. Sometimes she'd go and sit in baby Jeff's room. He had nightlights, and a little star and moon mobile with a soft filtered glow.

Dad's wife was young, probably really just Mom's age but Dad was so old he made Jade feel like an infant; she couldn't image how or why Mom, at the age of 22, had wanted to be with this man. Anyway, his wife was young and her accent was bad and she was always hovering and trying to talk to Jade, and Jade really didn't want to_ talk_ – she wanted her_ mom_.

It got a little better, though. Sometimes her father would take her for ice cream, and he didn't ask her a thousand questions about her day like Sophia did, just sat there in silent while they ate their cones. He liked strawberry like she did, but really he wasn't supposed to have any at all because he had diabetes and wasn't allowed to have a lot of sugar.

That's not what Shapiro is asking for, though.

She had turned eleven. She went to school. She passed. Dad helped her with math homework. She spent the summer before fifth grade doing projects with her father. They're still learning each other. She didn't really want to spend very much time with him, still, but no one much wanted to talk to her at school, so she didn't have much choice, really, unless she wanted to hang out with his wife, which she never would.

They painted the garage and their old backyard fence together as June had come. It took them over a month, because they both sucked at anything remotely related to home improvement. Sophia told them that they were supposed to have put primer down before they started to paint as they had stood frowning at their lumpy-looking garage. Jade's father made a horribly confused and rather disheartened face, and Jade smiled at it.

They drove back to Home Depot for more paint and the newly discovered primer. Jade flitted around the yard, gathering dead bugs for her collection as Dad laboriously stripped the garage of its first shoddy paint job. Inside, toddler Jeff had been wailing. It was probably too late for Sophia to get post-partum depression and go back to her stupid country and take her dumb baby with her.

They painted the garage anew and as they had, they listened to all of Dad's horrible old-man music from the oldest and most gigantic stereo Jade's ever seen, propped up on two metal folding chairs which they set out in the yard. Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen and The Doors and Lou Reed and – what was his name? Jim Croce. God, she hated Jim Croce.

Her hair had grown long enough for her to put into some semblance of a ponytail. Her father gave it a little tug as he walked past her, having ruined another paint brush. Jade shrieked and slapped at him, then adjusted her hair clips. She sang "Sweet Jane" absently as she painted.

Her father wiped his brow. He was sweating all through his white Oxford shirt. He looked like a dork (also old). "Aren't you hot, Jade?" he asked, wiping another fresh sheen of sweat from his forehead. "I can't understand how you aren't sweating."

Jade rolled her eyes and then went back to admiring the freshly painted side door she'd just finished. "Dad, sweating's gross. I don't do that," she said coldly.

Her father beamed at her like a goon. Ew!

"What?" she demanded.

"Nothing," he said demurely (she knew that word from a Stephen King book), and they continued painting. Jade sang 'Sunday Morning.' She sang 'Wild Horses.' She sang 'Light My Fire.'

"You have a very good voice," her father told her. Jade grunted. He continued: "Did you know that the average person has between 300 and 400 unique traits and talents?"

Oh my god. _What?_ She wasn't sweating to death so he decided to bore her to tears instead? He was determined to have her die of dehydration?

She decided to throw him a bone anyway. "Oh yeah?" she said.

"Yes," her father replied. "I was reading a book on children's self esteem. I'd estimate you yourself have potentially 376. I'm going to encourage all of them."

"Why don't I have exactly 400?" Jade demanded. "What, you don't think I'm good enough to have 400? Maybe I have four hundred and _two._"

Dad gave her a slightly confused and upset glance, which was usually the glance he gave to her at any given time. "I'm sorry, you must have exactly four hundred and two," he had said. "You are also doing lovely at painting."

_Lovely_! What a _geek!_ Lou Reed came on the stereo once again and Jade had just sang a little louder now, hoping Dad would forget what he was saying or drop it and stop hurting her with how much of a nerd he was. She still didn't want to fully accept that she had half of his DNA. Mom would never listen to Lou Reed (even though actually he was not that bad you know) or use a word like _lovely_. She'd say Jade was doing a _bitchin' job_ at painting the doorframe and then she'd let her have a sip of her beer.

Later, she thought that he'd looked so happy because maybe it was that she's called him Dad for the first time. It's just easier than saying "hey you," or "dude," all the time, and she hated the crestfallen face he made when she says "Mr. West." He didn't need to get all excited about it, she thought, scowling and punching her pillow as she goes to bed that night. So stupid!

So, now, she tells Shapiro: "Maybe painting."

Robbie looks a little confused, as usual. "Oh?" he says haltingly.

"Yeah. Fifth grade." She tells him a little bit about painting the house and Dad's thinking she had 402 talents. He'd started marking them in a little notebook. She tells him about his giant record player and her dead bug collection.

"Oh," says Shapiro more confidently now, and he smiles. "That's really nice," he says.

Jade hums absently.

Shapiro says, "Also explains why you like such weirdo music."

Jade drops her pen and leans over to smack him very hard on the head. "I do not like weirdo music!" she hollers. "_You_ do!" She struggles her way over the table, boots squeaking on the chair.

Shapiro laughs. "Jade, you'll scuff the woodwork!" he screams as she grabs the end of his scarf.

"I'll scuff more than the woodwork!"

Shapiro tries to fight her off. Why does he bother?

**AN: Some more backstory because even lovers drown said she wanted it. :)**


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

Finally slipping free from the clutches of Sikowitz (he'd held her after class, wanting to talk about a three-act play that she had co-written with Cat, but had ended up holding a lively eighteen-minute conversation with himself over the topic of whether or not mint leaves could really be used as a healing salve for foot blisters), Jade hurries out into the now nearly-empty halls of Hollywood Arts and starts down towards her locker, messenger bag slung loosely across one shoulder.

"Hey," says Robbie, popping up out of nowhere to walk beside her and assure that no one else ever would.

Oh, or he's just coming out of the camera room. Whichever.

"Hey," she says back, even though the shirt he's wearing is really far too bright and embarrassing for him to warrant any human contact. It has multicolored vertical stripes on it and she's told him repeatedly not to wear it if he wants her to acknowledge him in public.

Repeat: _multicolored vertical stripes. _Also, Rex is sticking out of his backpack.

Ugh. God, no one should talk to him ever! She wonders if she can convince Cat and Vega to give him the silent treatment for a few days. A while spent in isolation might push him on the path to dressing better and ditching out that stupid puppet.

"What're you still doing here?" Robbie asks.

"Just Sikowitz." She can feel his startled gaze on her, and quickly clarifies in horror, "He was talking at me about his feet."

"_Again?_"

"Yeah."

Robbie stops and stands beside her as they reach her locker, and he watches as she kicks it four times in succession to open it. "You should really talk to the janitor about that," he says, being wildly helpful as usual.

Jade gives forth a grunt.

"You waiting for Cat? Is she over at the preschool?" he asks.

"Not today," she says absently, trying to remember where she's put her English book. Well, her essay isn't due until Tuesday – she can write it Monday night if she has to. It's the freaking weekend! "Hey, want to give me a ride home?"

"Sure," Robbie says. "You're lucky I caught you!"

Jade just rummages thoughtfully though her locker, wisely choosing to ignore his last statement. She thinks that, really, nothing is very lucky at all, not when he's wearing that shirt. "Not that I care, but are you going to Beck's tonight?"

Shapiro looks very contemplative, like a few hours at Beck's could be a life-changing event for him. "I dunno," he says.

"Cat's going to meet up with me later if you feel like going with us."

Shapiro scratches his head. "Where's Andre?"

"Oh, uh - " she's trying to fit another notebook into her bag - "some religious retreat with his grandmother? I mean, he's leaving tonight. I think he took Cat to that, um, that cupcake place? So he won't be around." She gives up, abandoning the notebook back in her locker. In resignation: "We're having a girl's weekend. She wants to make taco dip for Beck's party."

Shapiro hums. "Can Cat survive the whole weekend without Andre licking every inch of her face?" he asks in a speculative tone, doing a fairly good job at sounding neither disgusted nor jealous.

Jade snorts. "Guess we'll see."

Robbie gives her a half-smile. He leans against the wall, bouncing a little and waiting as Jade swings her locker shut. He asks her, "Want to get food?"

Does he know her at all? She always wants to get food. "I guess so."

"Okay. Hey, I want to go to Planet of Salad."

Jade exhales. Decisively: "You're boring."

Shapiro makes a face at her, pushing up off the locker. "I'm _hungry_. And at least I can be assured I can eat something there and not _die_. I didn't eat very much lunch, you know." He gives her a pointed look, which she pretends to not notice. "Since _someone_ made me do all of their math homework. Oh, and which I noted was a day late, by the way! _Someone_ will get a deduction of points, and should be more interested in their _studies._"

Jade rolls her eyes and just acquiesces silently, because she doesn't have very much money and if she's good there's more chance of Shapiro buying her something. And he _did_ do her math homework, you know. They trudge out to the parking lot and situate themselves into Robbie's car (Jade yanks his backpack off and puts it with Rex in the trunk, so she doesn't have to look at the puppet) and Robbie pulls them off onto the highway after glowering for a few moments until she puts her seatbelt on.

At Planet of Salad, Shapiro hems and haws as they're waiting in line.

"Oh, get the Mars Explosion," Jade decides for him.

"Vomit," says Robbie, wrinkling his nose. "I don't want raw steak."

"Barf breath! It's not raw. It's _rare._"

"It's the same thing, you_ appalling carnivore._"

She pokes at him meanly, then drags her fingernail into a hole in his sweater and pulls. "Hey, you gotta hole in your sweater."

Shapiro squeals, twisting away from her. "Jade! I had a _run_ in the _stitching_. _Now_ I have a hole! Thanks, lady." He gives her a half-hearted glare, not really wanting to take his eyes from the menu above the ordering counter.

She folds her arms across her chest. "Well, you look sloppy," she sniffs.

"You sound like my grandmother."

Jade hits him on principal. He squeaks some more and mutters back _you look sloppy_, but she chooses to ignore this too. Can't kill the boy before he eats his lunch, right? And she does _not_ look sloppy. She looks _hot._ She'd spent a half hour curling her hair this morning.

Oh, how she hates him.

They come up to the ordering line, and the girl behind the counter looks at them expectantly. "Um," says Robbie hesitantly, still trying to decide.

"Come _on,_" Jade whines, and assaults the rip in his sweater again. "Freaking order! I can eat your cherry tomatoes."

"Jade! You can order your own salad," Robbie says. "Stop manhandling me!"

"I don't have any money," snits Jade. She lets her hand fall from his arm. Thoughtfully, she adds, "Also, I'm on a diet."

Shapiro sighs. "Fine," he says. He orders the Mars Explosion.

Jade feels happy. "Can I get a soda?" she asks the girl behind the counter. Shapiro gives her a dour glance, and moves over so that the next person in line can give their order. They hang out by the pick up line and Jade mills about, commenting on the menu. "Hey," she says suddenly, "will you buy me a milkshake, Shapiro?"

"I thought you were on a diet," he says absently, worrying at the little hole that's forming now in the shoulder of his sweater.

Jade glowers. Shapiro continues pointedly staring at the sweater hole and ignoring her gaze.

She definitely isn't going to say please, so she considers, then tries out a Cat-like pout on him. "Rob_bie_," she whines sweetly. "I'll get orange _mango_. They can put _soy milk_ in it. You can _have_ some."

Shapiro sighs, defeated - or possibly exhausted - by her. "Fine, whatever you want."

Jade beams, then waves her arms about to get the server's attention.

Shapiro pays for their stuff, then grabs up his salad (Jade looks at him expectantly until he asks for an extra fork for her), and trudges after her to the table of her choice. He slurps at his own soda (boring and diet) and watches her while she unwraps his wheat roll and picks at it. She spears a cherry tomato with her fork.

"Hey, where's the blue cheese dressing?" she demands.

Shapiro drinks his soda. "You didn't ask for it."

Jade stares for a beat. Shapiro slurps. She tries out another pout.

"Oh Moses," Robbie says, rolling his eyes, and scurries back to the serving counter. He comes back and tosses a few packets of salad dressing at her, looking miffed. Sitting back down, he says in a hushed tone, "That counter girl _winked at me._"

"_Ew_!" cries Jade, and leans over him to peer at the girl. She's tall and blonde, not _too_ pretty, which is why Jade hadn't hated her on sight and been nastier to her. She looks a bit older than them, maybe college age. Why would she be winking at Robbie? "Why would she be winking at you?"

"I don't know!" says Shapiro. "I mean, she doesn't even have a gimp leg, or a hunchback or anything!"

"Right?" says Jade musingly, still peering. Shapiro hums in offense. "Sorry," says Jade before she can help herself. "Hey, you said it."

Robbie harrumphs again. The girl at the counter looks up then at them, and she sends Jade a small knowing smile.

EW! OR A SMALL COMPLETELY UNKNOWING ABOUT ANYTHING SMILE! OH MY GOD! Jade says, "Oh my god!"

Shapiro looks up from his soda. "What?" he asks.

In faint horror, she says, "She thinks we're – together." Robbie stares blankly, so Jade (in ever-increasing horror) supplies, "Like, on _a date._"

Then suddenly she has Shapiro's soda on her face as he chokes and sputters all over her in what she presumes to be shock. "_What?_" he cries out.

"Shit, Robbie!" Jade hollers, and leans over to smack absently at him. She doesn't bother to hit him too hard because – well, whatever, his mouth is pretty clean, right? She knows he just brushed his teeth after lunch.

The perks of having absolute weirdo freak friends.

"I'm sorry," Robbie says, looking cowed. He hands her a napkin so that she can wipe her face, saying, "We don't look like we're on a date." He watches contemplatively as she wipes her chin off, then makes a doofy little face at her. It's what she's come to think of as his flirt face. It's not quite the moonbeams and sunshine gaze he would give to Cat, but it's – something, you know.

Something dorky, that is. Right now, he's looking at her with what she estimates to be half a moonbeam.

She narrows her eyes at him.

He says, "I mean, unless you want us to look like that."

"Yeah, no," Jade intones, and stabs up a cherry tomato with her fork. Shapiro grins a little. That response was probably the best he was hoping for. "It's just because you do everything I say."

"I do not!" says Robbie, and hands her another napkin.

"Do so," Jade returns, wiping some dressing off her fingers. "You're easy. I just pout at you like Cat and you buy me a milkshake."

Shapiro rolls his eyes at her, which - he would totally not do to Cat! "That's not why I bought you a milkshake."

Jade rolls her own eyes back at him, out of habit. "Oh no?" She twirls her hair around her fingers in a Cat-like manner, and Shapiro snorts at her.

"I bought you a milkshake because you're my friend," he says, and looks at her with huge stupid deer eyes, propping his chin up on his hand.

Oh, gross! Jade grunts in disgust and rolls her eyes, choosing to chomp loudly on a tomato instead of responding.

Shapiro picks at his steak for a few moment, shooting weird little looks at her. He asks, "I mean, right?"

"Huh?" She's just tried the milkshake, and it's so good it's made her forget what they were talking about.

Robbie trains his hopeful bug-eyed gaze on her. "We are, right? Friends? Right?"

Oh my god. He wants her to say it! So she does have to pay for this lunch after all. She huffs loudly, and forces out with as much resentment as possible, "Whatever, Robot." She adds, "One oh one one oh oh one one."

Robbie stares. "Huh?"

Jade smiles. "I was speaking in your native dialect. Robot. So you can understand me."

Robbie rolls his eyes. "Oh right," he says.

"You need to get with it," she tell him.

"Yeah, sorry. I had my transmitter turned off."

Jade smiles, steals another tomato.

* * *

After they eat, Shapiro drops her off back at her house. "If I go to Beck's," he starts haltingly as she's getting out of the car. "I mean, will you guys need a ride?"

Jade's actually forgotten she'd mentioned going to Beck's at all. She's not entirely sure she wants to go, honestly, because it's _Beck_, and he'll be there, obviously - probably Alison will be, too. She doesn't need to see them interact grotesquely, making her feel bad. But Cat wants to go, and she hasn't really been able to hang out with the girl since Christmas break, three weeks ago, and she guesses she – sort of misses her or something gay like that.

Also, she's pleased that Shapiro is considering hanging out. She knows that he still usually goes to visit his father on Saturdays, and for some reason he sees fit to sequester himself in solitude the whole weekend for it. He has a part-time job that he works at, too, moving furniture at some warehouse, and he says it's because of that, but she knows it isn't.

She doesn't know why she knows. She just feels like if it were her, that's what she'd tell people instead of the truth.

Jade comes around to his side of the car to peer at him through his window, which is rolled down a bit.

"Maybe Cat can drive," she says. "But we might want to - " she pauses to think of a way to tactfully word this so that Shapiro will understand it - "get _silly._"

Shapiro stares. "Is that - " he says, and stops. Then, "Oh," he says, "you mean – alcohol."

"What did you think I meant?!"

"Um," says Robbie brilliantly, "ah - board games!"

Oh, he was not thinking of board games! "I hate you, you _appalling pervert._"

Robbie just laughs! "Don't call me too early," he says. "It's Friday night. I need to unwind."

Ew! She does not need to think of Shapiro unwinding ever, despite how pretty she sometimes might find his mouth! "You're disgusting!" she hollers.

He looks stricken. "You – ew! That's not what I meant! Why would I say that to you!"

"Bye dork," Jade says, happy, and flits inside.

Cat comes over a little bit later, looking pink as usual and also gross and glowing from spending the afternoon with Andre. "Want to get pizza?" she asks immediately.

"Oh, I ate with Shapiro," Jade says absently from where she's reading on the couch. Cat pouts and sends her a wounded glance, like she hadn't been the one to tell Jade she was busy earlier! She goes into the kitchen and a moment later, Jade hears the microwave bing. She hopes it's not the last Hot Pocket. Sophia is working late tonight, and Dad had been inspecting it hopefully this morning.

Cat comes back into the living room, chattering on, eating her Hot Pocket (whoops). Jeff comes in and they watch a few episodes of Girly Cow while Jade reads her book.

"Jade!" says Jeff. He announces, "I'm hungry!"

Jade turns a page in her book. "That's really sad."

"Jade!" says Jeff. "I want macaroni and cheese!"

"Hmm. So sad."

"Jade!" says Jeff. "Mom's not coming home until late! I can't use the stove! Jade! Mom says - "

She throws her book at him and stomps out to the kitchen. Cat doesn't even look up from the TV! "Wench," she instructs, "can you at least call Robbie to pick us up later?"

Cat mumbles an affirmation into the Hot Pocket.

Jeff follows her around the kitchen, squeaking annoyingly. "I want the Boogie Bear macaroni! Oh _God!_ That's too much salt!" Jade accidentally hits him with an oversized spoon, four times.

Her father comes in about a half hour later, after the macaroni is done and Jade and Jeff are situated back on the couch alongside Cat, eating. Jeff has his special dinosaur spoon ("That's for babies," Jade said, and Jeff had glowered). Dad takes pause to look at the crumpled Hot Pocket wrapper beside Cat in distress, then meanders sadly into the kitchen with a small wave at them all.

It's begun to rain by the time the girls note Robbie's car pulling up alongside the street, that heedy, fast-falling sort of shower that always comes and leaves abruptly and dings loudly against the windowpanes. Cat zippers herself up into her giant puffy marshmallow jacket and secures her knit hat as Jade runs around, trying to find a hoodie. Shapiro's car looms, and she can just, like, _feel _him being impatient. He'll never honk, either, which is the worst part.

"Go, go!" she says, shoving Cat out the door and turning to dig through the hall closet. She finally snatches up her hoodie – Alice in Chains, and it's Jar of Flies, thankyouverymuch – and dashes out into the storm. Cat, nice and obedient, has situated herself in the backseat, so Jade slips into the passenger seat beside Robbie. "Fucking rain."

Shapiro pokes at a rip in her jacket, alongside her arm. "You gotta hole in your sweater."

"Don't rip it!" she hollers, battering at him.

Robbie drags his finger down the rip along her arm. "Where the heck did you find this thing?" he asks her, looking personally affronted by it. "You are basically wearing a giant rag. It can't be very warm."

"Get off me!" She yanks her arm away to hit him very hard. "You'll ruin it! It was my _mom's!_"

"Oh," says Robbie, and looks a little cowed. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Cat sticks her head up between them to burble, "Mother present, very special."

"Shut up, Cat," Jade says, at the same time Robbie says, "Cat, be quiet."

Interesting.

Cat leans back into her seat and pours elaborately. Shapiro turns his engine on again and backs away from the curb, turning around to edge back down the street. He keeps giving her quick little nervous looks, trying to contain himself from nagging. Finally he says, "It is pretty run-down. Would it _kill_ you to stitch up those tears?"

Jade scowls and crosses her arms across her chest. She totally is not buckling her seat belt for him now! "If it bothers you so much why don't you do it," she snits.

Robbie looks offended. "Maybe I will!"

Jade snorts, and he makes an even more affronted face at her. "What? I know how to sew. Mrs. - well – I know how to sew! Someone taught me!"

Oh lord and Vincent Price. Behind them, Cat giggles softly. Jade says, very seriously, "Robbie?"

Robbie looks very resigned now, focusing his gaze on the road. "What. Jade."

"One day you will make a perfect housewife to a very nice man. I hope you know that."

Cat laughs wildly, and Jade grins too, looking at his facial expression. "You - !" he says, and falls silent in utter indignation. Cat yells something about Robbie being on the Real Housewives of LA, and that makes Jade laugh, too.

Robbie scowls. "You guys are so rude, you are – I don't even _like _you girls," he mutters, putting his blinker on to switch lanes. "I don't even drive you around because I like you. I just feel bad for you both, you're so _homely, _the least witty females I've ever met - "

"We love you too, Roberta," Jade says sweetly. "Hey, can we get some music up in this bitch?"

Robbie stares stonily out at the road.

Jade leans in close and pouts. Robbie stares at the road.

Cat bounces forward and leans too, knocking into Jade, red hair swinging and battering at Robbie's arm. He squeals, "Personal space, ladies!"

They stare. Robbie quakes, then: "Fine." With a snap of his wrist, he turns the radio on.

Jade beams, and she and Cat lean back into their seats. "Thanks, baby."

"Don't even like you guys at all," Shapiro mutters, but he is smiling. And: "JADE! WHERE IS YOUR SEATBELT?"

Rats.

* * *

They make it to Beck's unscathed and only a little late due to Shapiro's devote following of traffic laws, and he and Cat follow Jade around to the side of the house as she opens the kitchen door without knocking and steps in.

Vega's already there, looking a little out of place as she sits at the Oliver's kitchen table. Beck is making himself a sandwich. He looks up, unsurprised to see the three of them entering without knocking, and smiles slightly. "Hey guys."

"Hello," chorus Cat and Robbie (Jade grunts). Cat bats Robbie out of the way, moving to go greet Tori as she struggles out of her gigantic jacket.

Robbie frowns at the sandwich. "Should I have brought an appetizer platter?"

Jade can't help exchanging a quick _Robbie Shapiro, folks _look with Beck, who holds her gaze for a moment longer than she'd like, smiling. "No, Rob," he says in that slightly slow-paced (and what Jade finds to be incredibly condescending, if you really want to know the truth) voice that he uses when he thinks Robbie is being particularly, well, _Robbie._ "It's not a big deal. We're just kicking it back."

_Kicking it back._ God, he's really not much better, is he?

Beck continues, in his regular voice, "Are you hungry, Robbie? I know what happens when your blood sugar drops below 70. Do you want half of my sandwich?"

"Oh, no thank you," says Robbie. "I'm still full of raw meat from earlier."

Beck and Tori stare (Cat doesn't). Jade elaborates for him, "We went to Planet of Salad."

"Oh," says Beck shortly. "You guys got food together." His mouth forms a tight little line.

"Uh, yes," Robbie says, turning to Tori. He asks her, "Hey, where's Alison? I see her car," just as Beck states in a slightly lower tone, "I like to get food, too, you know, guys."

Tori looks guilty and Beck looks sulky (Cat looks pink, and Robbie looks stupid). "She's in, uh, the bathroom," says Tori in her hangdog voice. Jade raises an eyebrow. Beck says, "Tori spilled cherry soda all over her sweater. It was white."

"The girl came out of nowhere!" squeals Tori.

Beck's dad comes into the kitchen clutching four grocery bags, looking completely unperturbed to find plus five teenagers milling about as he dumps the bags across the counter.

"Hey Dad," says Beck from where he's sitting leaned up against the Oliver's steel fridge. "Did you buy me any wine?"

"Nope!" says Mr. Oliver cheerfully. "Hey kids." He turns his gaze briefly to Beck before returning to his groceries. He pulls a half-gallon of milk out. "Can't stop you from what you're gonna do, doesn't mean I'm gonna add to it."

Beck pouts up at his dad, who kicks at him lightly. "Outta my way, hair." Beck's frown turns into a little scowl, and he shifts away from the fridge so that Mr. Oliver can put the milk away.

"I'm gonna go find Ali," says Beck, and scoots from the room. Jade still doesn't know why he gets so worked up about comments on his hair. And she – well, if he gets upset about the fact that his father drinks so much sometimes, he probably shouldn't be asking the man to buy him alcohol!

"Hey, Rob-Man!" Mr. Oliver says across the counter. "Nice to see you!"

Shapiro gives him a tight and uncomfortable smile, staying loyal to Beck out of some sort of dork-guy-solidarity. "Can I help you put those away, sir?"

_Sir!_ Jade and Beck's dad lock eyes for a moment over the pain of him before Mr. Oliver smiles again and says, "Sure, that's nice of you." Robbie comes around to the other side of the counter and begins unpacking the grocery bags. Mr. Oliver sends Jade a lofty grin. "Hi babe."

"Hey lover," she replies. Robbie and Tori make soft scandalized noises (Cat doesn't). She's a little worried that Beck's dad is going to bring up his Matchbox 20 CD, which she still hasn't returned, but he just quirks an eyebrow nicely at her and asks, "How's life been treating ya?"

"Same old shit," she retorts, and moves to sit at the table with Cat and Vega as the boys put the groceries away. Mr. Oliver grins again.

"How's your little bro?"

"He's all right. He got on the honor roll last quarter."

"Hey, nice! So his meds are working?"

Jeff's pediatrician had recommended him to a child psychologist about a year ago, after Jeff had been suspended for breaking a fish tank at school. The psychologist had suggested that Jeff had ADHD. Dad and Sophia had sort of fought the diagnosis for a few months, saying that Jeff was too young to be diagnosed with something like that, but near the end of summer they had agreed to put him on a low dosage of Ritalin. He was a little less wacko now – at school, at any rate. Jade says, "Yeah, pretty good."

Beck's dad looks happy for Jeff, which is nice. He takes the eggs and potatoes that Shapiro's been awkwardly holding out for the past twenty seconds and situates them in the refrigerator.

"Okay kids," he says. "I'm heading upstairs for the night. Try not to be too loud, okay?"

After Beck's dad had gone upstairs, they'd broken into his alcohol supply as everyone knew they would. Robbie and Tori stood back a few feet, looking disapproving, as Beck and Jade and Cat and Alison (sporting a large pink stain on her white pullover; it's sort of shaped like Africa, Jade thinks) began to pour a concoction into a large punch bowl.

"I can't believe he just lets you do this," Robbie squeaks.

Beck waves a bottle of tequila around consideringly. "He doesn't care," he says. "Did you see his liquor cabinet? He doesn't notice. How'd you think I got that whiskey at Halloween?"

"_What_ whiskey at Halloween?" Tori asks dangerously.

"Haha!" says Beck nervously. "Just kidding."

He stares resolutely into the punch bowl and not at Tori. Jade can't stop her smirking.

All in all, it's not too bad of a night. Beck puts the Violent Femmes on his dad's record player in the living room, which is a band she likes. She wouldn't – you know, mind Andre being here, as he's practically the only one aside from her that's normal, but Shapiro holds conversation with Cat all by himself and looks neither crestfallen nor particularly moony, so Jade supposes it's all for the best. She flits to and fro from the kitchen to the living room, eating cookies, yelling song lyrics at Cat, drinking alcohol.

When she runs out of her second glass, Beck follows her into the kitchen to make her a new drink. He'd always made them for her while they were together. Robbie hovers in the background, looking a bit like a disapproving stork.

"So?" says Beck as she's sipping at it elegantly for a taste-test. "More pineapple juice?"

Jade waves her drink in his face. "I find it very copacetic."

Beck stares blankly and Robbie hums in disapproval, because when Jade gets mildly intoxicated she sometimes begins to break out in smart-people words extending three syllables and somehow he must know this already.

Beck still looks blank, so she sneers, "God, would it kill you to read a book, Oliver?"

Contemplatively, Beck replies, "It _might._" He looks to Robbie for help. Shapiro shrugs, and defines, "Satisfactory. On the side of, very good, actually." He adds, "She likes it."

"Oh," says Beck, and grins. "Cool."

"Yes, in the universe where drinking underaged is cool," says Robbie, and gives her a dark little look, like she's the one who's mixed drinks and not Beck!

"One one oh oh one," says Jade. "Go back to your space ship and find that one, then! Maybe you can learn to unwind there."

"You're annoying," Robbie tells her. "Am I an alien, or a robot? We have robots on earth, you know, Jade. Some are highly advanced."

Jade taps at her mouth, thinking. "Aliens _could_ have made you," she says. "Boring ones. Fat and boring ones. Jewish aliens."

"Shut up!" Robbie squeals. "I am not fat! I don't even like you! I bought you a _milkshake!_"

"Because you _love_ me," Jade says, and sticks her tongue out at him. Robbie harrumphs, but he does not deny his love for her – who could? Seriously, she tells him, "I'm an adorable drunk."

"You're a something drunk," says Robbie.

Jade smiles sweetly at him, leaning over. For some reason, he flushes.

"Um," says Beck. Oh, is he still here? Jade turns to look at him. His brow is furrowed a little, like he's upset, or thinking very hard about something. Then his face clears rather suddenly, forehead smoothing out, in a way that she remembers usually goes along with him making a serious discovery, like when he'd realized that Cat's Splashface always looked amazing because Jade made her layouts, or at the end of The Sixth Sense when he'd found out that Haley Joel Osment had been talking to a dead guy for two hours.

He smiles. "Yeah. So, you guys – I'm just going to, you know, go in the other room. And leave you in here. To keep. Yeah. Arguing."

"Okay?" Robbie asked slowly, frowning a little at him (really, his mouth is just so pink, how does he _do_ that? He's a boy!).

"Whatever," says Jade, staring at the mouth. She drinks some more of her drink, and Robbie turns now to twist his stupid lips in disapproval at her.

"I don't know how you can drink that stuff," he says. "That's whiskey!"

"It's not _just _whiskey," Jade says, hurt, and pouts. Shapiro blinks at her. She waves the drink in his face. "Try it!"

Shapiro squeals. "No!"

Jade waves it harder, and a bit of it spills out over her hand. "You jerk!" she cries. "It's good! It's pineapple!"

"I have to drive," Robbie says resolutely, horrible and undeterred by her pout and the fact that she's spilled on herself.

"It's one sip, Shapiro!"

Robbie takes the plastic cup from her and holds it with disdain. "I hope you understand how badly you are peer pressuring me," he says, as Jade preens. He sniffs at the glass and makes a horrible face. "Ew!"

"It's sweet!" Jade insists. "There's pear in it too."

"_Pear _pressuring - " Shapiro starts, and then drops it when she gives him a particularly pained gaze. "Ag. I hope not too sweet. I shouldn't be taking in too much sugar, you know. My doctor says I'm particularly susceptible to juvenile diabetes. I don't have it yet, but there is a disorder called - "

"Robbie."

Shapiro sighs in resignation. He holds her gaze for a moment, saying, "You're really mean to me," and starts to bring the cup up to his lips.

Tori walks into the kitchen, sees them, and shrieks, "_ROBBIE!_"

Robbie squeaks, chokes, and spills the drink all over his shirtsleeve and Jade. God, it's the second time she's had Shapiro spit on her today!

Robbie hangs his head and looks at the ruination of his shiny pink shirt. "Aw, man," he says, as Tori's yelling shrilly_ OH MY GOD ROBBIE SHAPIRO WHAT ARE YOU DOING I THOUGHT YOU OF ALL PEOPLE HAD SELF CONTROL_

Jade feels good.

* * *

The night wears on. Tori helps Robbie blot his shirt with ginger ale, and then they flutter about with sodas, looking disapproving at everyone. Cat sequesters herself onto the floor, tapping away at her PearPhone, probably texting Andre. Jade mixes herself a new drink and looks at records with Alison.

"Hey, you like Lou Reed?" she asks, motioning to the album the girl is holding.

"Yeah," says Ali. "My dad always plays him."

"Mine too!"

Beck looks over at them nervously. Jade glares back at him, sips her drink. Eventually the girls pick a record to put on – _Loaded_, which Jade finds to be very apt – and Jade wanders over to where Shapiro is sitting sprawled out on the Oliver's couch, looking tired and not all that unhappy, considering. She collapses down next to him, and he shifts over slightly, making room for her, though they end up with their elbows still touching anyway. He really takes up _so much space_.

Jade looks over at him, squashed on the end of the couch by her, feeling happy. "You got grape soda on your shirt too," she tells him.

"I know," says Shapiro. He dramatically bows his head in sorrow.

Jade looks up at him happily. She also informs him, "Your hair looks like a sheep."

"Thanks," says Shapiro dryly, and fluffs it. "That's so nice of you to point out."

Jade laughs. "Some people might like that," she tells him nicely. "Like, maybe in Iceland or some shit." She can hear her words slur: _errrr sum shit,_ but finds herself rather uncaring. "Girls there might like that."

"Yeah," says Shapiro. "I'm sure there's just a pack of Icelandic females waiting to shear me up." He looks very depressed over this. Probably a plane ticket to Iceland costs a lot.

"Awww," says Jade. She pats his cheek. "You'll get there someday." Shapiro snorts at her. He bats her hand away half-heartedly. She pouts, then, contemplatively, she reaches up and pats his hair. Hey, it's actually really soft! "Hey!" she cries. "It's actually really soft!"

Shapiro looks offended as she strokes his hair. "Did you really think I would feel like a farm animal?" he asks. "I told you I took a bubble bath! I wash myself!"

"Hm," says Jade in agreement, petting. "What conditioner do you use?"

Vega wanders over, holding two juice boxes. "You guys look pretty weird and comfy over here," she comments, and squishes herself onto the ledge of the couch beside Robbie.

"Tori, touch Robbie's hair," Jade commands. "It's really soft."

Tori pats Shapiro's head contemplatively. "Whoa! Yeah, it is!"

Shapiro leans over, tilting his shoulders towards Jade. "Not just that! Smell me!"

Already the night is weird.

Jade complies and leans over to sniff at Shapiro's head. "Hey!" she cries. "You smell like a strawberry! Vega, smell him."

Tori leans obligingly over Robbie to sniff delicately. "Wow, Robbie!" she says appreciatively. "Why do you smell like strawberries and cream?"

Robbie looks happy. "Well, girls can smell like lots of nice edible things," he says. "Like chocolate, and spearmint tea! This is my sister's shampoo! One day I thought, why can't I smell like a delicious fruit too?" He beams. "Don't you wanna take a bite out of me?"

"No," says Jade.

"Not really," says Tori.

Shapiro frowns. "Well. Burf said he did."

Jade lolls her head back and laughs. "I think that says more about him than your hair, dude," she says. She's a bit glad that Vega doesn't want to take a bite out of Robbie. If they start getting together and biting each other, she'll never have anyone to hang out with ever! She reaches out and smacks Tori's hand away from Shapiro's hair. "That's enough, Vega! Christ!" She doesn't need her getting any ideas, you know!

She commences petting Shapiro's hair. For some reason, Vega stares at her very hard. "Okay, Jade," she says clearly. "I won't touch _your_ Lit Media partner."

"Good," is all Jade says. Tori hums quietly. Jade leans her head back – it's through no fault of hers, you know, that it comes to rest on Robbie's shoulder – and lets her eyes close, listening to Lou Reed sing. The room spins softly, and she feels all right.

Robbie doesn't move away from her.

**Author's Note: Another really long chapter, in apologies for making you guys wait so long! I have a new work schedule and will probably be updating mid-week from now on, instead of weekends.**

**The Robbie / Jade moments in this chapter were probably the most fun I've had writing this.**


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

She doesn't exactly remember how she'd made it home that Friday night. When she thinks back on it very hard, she has hazy recollections of a loud crash (Vega breaking the punch bowl in the kitchen), a bit of yelling (Beck's dad, come to check on them and finding the empty tequila and whiskey bottles), quite a bit more of yelling (Beck himself, telling his dad that he was a hypocrite, with some colorful language sprinkled in), but most of all, she remembers the song 'Sweet Jane' playing as the rest of her friends rounded up their stuff in a rather subdued manner. The record had been almost over.

She remembers burrowing into Shapiro's sharp shoulder, turning her face away from the jacket Tori (had it been Tori? Perhaps it was Ali; they both had been wearing light colors and sounded annoying) had been shoving at her. Tori / Ali was saying that it was colder outside now and to take her spare coat. She hadn't wanted to move – she blamed it on drunken fatigue. And, you know, Robbie was much too bony, but he had felt warm against her, sort of a nice pillow regardless. His sweater – the blue striped one, not the orange monstrosity – really was very soft. He also smelled sort of _amazing,_ she hoped she hadn't said aloud (she doesn't think she had said it aloud. His shoulder didn't smell like strawberries, just really good soap or cologne or something).

Shapiro had remained resolutely sober throughout the night, of course, as the designated drive, and she guesses he'd managed to wrangle her and Cat back into his car. The radio had been tuned low, playing Hole, and she does remember the piercing sound of Cat's loud laughter over her favorite song. _She's still alive, but I am sure that all the stars belong to her.  
_

A great big blank space over the drive home, which is disturbing – Beck lived about twenty-five minutes from her; it was always closer to forty with the halting way Shapiro drove. That's a long period of non-recollection, a time period in which she could have slurred many awful horrific things. No memory of getting into her house, either, though she does faintly recall Jeff squealing and Shapiro squealing back at him in a frantic whisper.

Then she'd been in her bed, definitely her favorite place in the world.

Jade had a queen-sized bed. It had been the first thing she'd picked out for herself when she had came to live with Dad, rejecting his disgusting suggestion of a pink metal bunk bed._ For babies. _With Mom, she'd shared a bed through the age of almost five, until Pop Pop had died and they'd had to move into one of many tiny apartments. After that, she'd had a cot, which was – fine, you know, totally fine; she knew that real, grown-up-people beds were expensive, and Mom didn't have a lot of money. But Dad did, and Jade had picked out a giant, soft mattress, the headboard a built-in bookshelf with three secret drawers that only she and Dad knew about but he'd promised to never look in.

She remembers laying sprawled out on her bed, feet dangling off, watching idly as Shapiro argued with Cat over something stupid - Froot Loops cereal, she thinks. Why had he been doing that? Probably Cat had wanted to eat more; Cat always wanted to eat more. He'd set up a fort of blankets on the floor for the smaller girl and then sat carefully beside Jade on her bed. She doesn't quite recall, but she thinks that he'd taken her boots off for her (she also thinks she had kicked him in the neck, and then laughed a bit while he spluttered). When he'd made to get up and move away, she'd groaned inarticulately and rolled over onto his arm, trapping him.

"Jade?" he'd said in great fear. "You – what are you ? – you're, um, crushing me, Jade."

"Nrrrryagh," she grumbled into the bedspread.

"I don't – Cat, what is she, what is she saying?" he'd stammered out.

"Asgdfghkl," Jade said.

She remembers Cat crowing gleefully from the floor. "She wants you to stay!" Cat had said.

Shapiro gave out one of his shrill little squeak-squeals. "I – I can't stay," he'd said. "I have to, I have to get up early. And I'm – a, a boy. That's not, that's not a good message to send, with children in the household!" He'd said a few more dorky things, she guessed, but they'd faded out and away against the soft buzzing hiss that had been throbbing through her head. That buzzing hiss had been the torturous whisper of alcohol, saying _why did you drink me_.

"Jade," he'd tried again, and gave his arm a little experimental tug. She remembers how it had dragged her black tank top up a bit, and the air was cool against her skin. Jade had wiggled more securely. "Um," Robbie said. Now his arm was crushed up under her rib cage, just below her breasts. "Oh dear."

"_Asfdjkk!_" Jade said.

"Okay, okay!" Shapiro shriek/squealed. "I'll, I'll stay!"

"Nrrrgh," Jade said, satisfied.

Cat trilled out laughter. "Nnnrgh!" she repeated, and fell off into pearls of giggling. "Boy/girl party in Jade's room!" Jade remembers turning her head slowly to look down at Cat, who'd been grinning and covered with three different Disney blankets. Oh God.

"Oh God," Robbie said faintly, but, she thinks now, probably not in regards to the Disney blankets.

She guesses she had slept then. She doesn't know how Robbie had managed to extricate his arm, at what point he had throughout the night, or at what costs. When she wakes the next morning, a little past nine, with a sledgehammer of a headache as reminder of why alcohol sucked, he's gone.

Secret Bear is resting primly beside her on one of the pillows. Jade sits up carefully, brushing back her tangled curtain of green-and-black hair, and holds the bear for a moment, glowering down at him. Where had Shapiro found him? She'd thought she had put him safely away in her closet, days ago.

Down in the kitchen, Dad looks distressed, as usual. He's in his purple robe and is just setting up the coffee machine. She casts a dark and suspicious glance at him as she shuffles by, waiting for his halting questioning and the possible impending lecture.

Instead: "It's your uncle Bernard's 35th wedding anniversary this next weekend," Dad tells her. He sits down at the table and looks sorrowful as she roots around in the cabinets - did Jeff eat all the Ring Dings again? That's her hangover cure, four of them. Jade just sort of grunts back at Dad, because it's a weekend morning and is he _really_ trying to hold a conversation with her right now? "Don't forget," he adds.

Jade snorts. She spies a lone packet of rice cakes far back in the cabinets, and snags them up as Shapiro bait. No one here will ever eat them. "Sounds like you did," she says. She sounds like a cave troll, she thinks dismally. Or Shapiro choking on tofu.

"I was _trying_ to," Dad says pensively, and a bit underhandedly, like he's going to get tarred and feathered for being sarcastic about his family.

Actually, knowing them ...

Jade crosses the room and shoves the pack of rice cakes into her backpack (still on the counter, which means Jeff hasn't meddled with it) so she won't forget for Monday. Dad watches her with mild interest. Jade sends him a strong glower, checks the time on her phone again. She wonders if she smells overbearingly like alcohol, or just fruit, from the drink and Shapiro's stupid hair. Maybe she should go and brush her teeth. She's surprised Shapiro hadn't made her, last night, and - oh god, last night, that's really embarrassing, she'd petted his hair and laid on him and possibly told him he'd _smelled good._ She hates everything.

What is wrong with her? What's happening?

She senses Dad still watching. "Do we have to _go there?_" Jade asks, looking up, understanding suddenly.

"Probably," says Dad.

Jade sighs heavily. Dad sighs, too.

* * *

Cat's talking to her a mile a minute, and Andre's beside her, his arm slung loosely over her shoulder. It's Tuesday now, and school has just let out for the day. "We're still going to the mall this weekend, right?" Cat asks her hopefully.

"I can't," Jade says absently, and Cat looks distressed. "I have this family thing." Cat continues to look distressed, which is annoying, so she says, "Maybe we can go, like, tomorrow." She sends a small, discreet glower to Andre, and adds, "If you aren't _busy._"

"I won't be busy!" Cat declares, cheering instantly. Other than answering her questions on the gaps in her memory from late Friday night, Cat hasn't said much else about the – the _problem:_ the problem of Jade, you know, excessively touching Robbie and making him sleep on her bed and the _incredible_ weirdness of that.

Robbie hadn't said anything on it either, aside to ask her Monday morning if she'd felt all right the next day. She felt a little stupidly grateful, and weirdly put-off by it – it wasn't such a big deal after all, she guessed.

Not to him, at any rate. And why would it be? He still had Cat-blinders on, right? She'd told him she'd been fine, and asked if he'd gotten to go see his dad.

"Yeah," said Shapiro, and he had smiled a little. "He didn't know I was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, so it was okay. We played checkers for a while. Didn't talk much."

Now, beside her, Robbie looks as depressed as she'd felt when he'd said that. _Checkers for a while._ What a great relationship. She knows it's not perfect with her Dad, but - "What family thing?" Robbie asks.

"Uh," says Jade. "My stupid uncle. It's his anniversary. He has parties for everything. He's like Vega."

Tori, putting her books away across the hall, comes over to look mildly offended.

Shapiro looks ever the more depressed. "_All_ weekend?" he asks. "What am _I_ supposed to do?" He looks crestfallen. "Hang out with Beck, or something?"

For some reason, this makes Jade feel happy. She _is_ better than Beck! She doesn't know why everyone else doesn't know this. "You'll survive," she tells him. She slams her locker shut. Brightly, "Hey, why don't you get some filming with Danny out of the way?"

At the mention of Danny, Shapiro pulls a horrible face. Danny Dajakis is the freshman they'd picked to star as the protagonist for their film, and he fits the novel's version to a T, all tall and blue-eyed and squeaky-clean-looking.

He was also an abominable little shit, and Shapiro was convinced that he smoked pot (or, '_marijuana,_' as Shapiro had whispered in hushed and disapproving tones). But he had that all-American look they wanted, and he was actually a pretty good actor, the best out of the group of sophomores and freshman they'd scouted through.

"He doesn't _listen_ to me," Shapiro whines.

"Yeah, well, he already hates me," Jade replies loftily. Dajakis loves to goof off and ad-lib lines, which would be well and good, if the whole point of the stinking assignment wasn't about keeping true to dialogue! Jade had spent all afternoon yesterday hollering at him, and it really sucked, because yesterday was Monday and who the hell wants to stay late at school on a Monday and do more work, even if it was for a project you actually liked?

Andre puts in, "You can _make_ him work by putting the fear of God in him, Jade."

"Or the fear of Marilyn Manson," Jade says contemplatively.

Cat smiles, looking happy and unaffected by everything. Beck's dad, despite his threats, hadn't called any of their parents, and Jade guesses Beck hadn't even gotten grounded for stealing his dad's booze. What does Jade get as a reward for faking good behavior? A trip to see her stupid family.

Cat leans slightly into Andre, and he tightens his arm across her shoulder, giving her a little squeeze that Jade would find cute if they weren't horrible. A ways across the hall, she watches Beck lean over at Ali and laugh softly at something she's said. They look happy, too.

Jade, Tori, and Robbie lean against their lockers since they don't have significant others to lean on. Jade feels bad.

For herself and Shapiro, you know. She doesn't care that Vega is sad too.

Cat bounces a little. "Gosh, we're going to be late!" she gasps, saucer-eyed. "Andre is taking me to a movie. Do you guys want to come?"

"No thanks," says Shapiro dismally.

"I'd rather be murdered," says Jade drolly.

"I should find Trina before she goes home without me," says Vega dejectedly. She walks off with a little wave.

Cat and Andre sort of wander away too after that exchange. There's nothing more to be said, really. They've got each other. What's everyone else got?

Jade keeps watching as, across the hall, Beck moves in close over Ali to say something softly down to her, a little smile curling up the edges of his face. Ali's head rolls back as she laughs, a high winding sound that echoes along the halls, white-blonde hair falling down her back. Beck smiles some more, reaches down to take her backpack for her. They walk off without noticing her and Shapiro still leaning on their lockers. In her head, far far away, she hears Beck saying _Not like with you, Jade, not serious_, thinks of his big eyes so dark on her.

He looks pretty serious now, though.

She knows that she was right in telling him no. Maybe he didn't even mean it, anyway.

It still sucks.

Shapiro says, "Want to go to my house? I'm trying to learn a new Creedence song on guitar."

Jade thinks of Robbie's lonely dark house that is always silent because his mom and sister are both never home now and his pristine beige carpets and pictures of his happy family that doesn't really exist anymore. It's not too big of a house, but the empty spaces in it have felt vast recently, and neither of them can hide that.

"No," she says, and Shapiro looks disappointed. Then she says, "But we can go to you house, get your guitar, and then go to mine."

"Okay," says Shapiro, and smiles. It's a small smile, but it's real, and that's all right. They push themselves off the lockers and walk out of the school together, not talking.

* * *

That weekend she takes the trip upstate with her father and Jeff and Sophia to her uncle's house. Her life is an endless cycle of being alone, being exhausted by Cat and Robbie, and being overwhelmed by Dad's large extended family. Bernard is dad's second oldest brother, and he's weird like Dad, but more self-confident, prone to bragging, and thus way more annoying. He and his wife have three kids and_ they_ all have kids that are around Jeff's age, a little younger, which means Jeff immediately starts hollering and running about the yard shooting his – what the hell are they? second cousins? grand-cousins? – with water guns.

Of course it's raining, has been since the morning, so Jade just sits on the sprawling covered porch and watches Sophia chase her brother around, trying to get his windbreaker on him. Jeff shouts joyfully and leaps away from her, reminding Jade a little bit of a cricket, which makes her smile involuntarily (bugs are cool). Dad laboriously carries all their luggage up into the house, breathing heavily and trekking mud up onto the porch and looking upset over it.

"Do you need help?" Jade asks him as he hefts Sophia's giant carry-on bag onto the porch.

"That's all right," Dad says in the dulcet tones of one who is eternally miserable about his extended family, and slumps back down the porch steps. Jade smiles and lights a cigarette.

"Hi Jadey," says one of the cousins, who's pregnant again, ew, tromping out of the house and coming to greet them.

Jade glowers briefly at her and tries to remember this one's name. Brittany? No, it's something stupid, because Dad's whole family is weird and pretentious and tiresome. She thinks she's named after a ship or a country or something. Britannic? Britannia?

Britannica is still looking down at her expectantly over the huge swell of her belly, so Jade grits out, "Hey." She doesn't make mention of the fact that her name is not nor has ever been _Jadey._

Britanna smiles beatifically. She is blonde and perfect (despite being grossly pregnant right now) and a little on the short side. All Uncle Bernard's kids are, and the grandkids. Then there's her and Jeff, who are tall and too-knobby with brown hair and Jeff is a shade darker than everyone else. "Your hair got so long!" she exclaims. "How old are you now? 16?"

Jade looks at her darkly. "18 in four months."

"Oh. That's right." Britannic looks mildly puzzled, because they never remember that Jade was held back a stupid grade because Mom was incompetent and went through four cities in a year. No one here likes to bring up Mom at all, actually. She wonders if they all secretly think Dad miraculously laid an egg or something and only managed to find it nine years after it hatched.

With great effort, Brittannic squishes herself into a sitting position on the steps beside Jade. God. Help. Her. "So how have you been, girl? Do you still go to that art school?"

Jade holds her breath for five counts, watches Dad struggle to shut the trunk and almost fall flat on his face into a mud puddle. He'd want her to be nice, and not to cause a scene after only five minutes of being here.

"Yeah," she says, which is about as nice as she can get. "And it's a performing arts school. Not art. Actually."

Dad comes struggling up the steps past them carrying her and Jeff's duffle bags. "Hello Brigitta," he says, huffing and puffing, sounding like he's trying not to sound too world-weary and utterly failing. Also, oh, Brigitta. The hell. She's not going to remember that.

"Uncle Alan!" B cries. "Let me help you!" Like a mountain imploding on itself, B starts to wiggle up with great effort.

"Nonsense," puffs Dad, and crashes past them to the door.

"Oh … well, if you're sure." B crashes back down onto the steps once more (Jade hears them creak under her giant mass, she swears) and beams once more expectantly at Jade. Over his shoulder, Dad gives her a softly pleading look.

Jade makes a sour face back at him. She sighs. She looks at Brigitta with only moderate disdain. "So," she says, gesturing very nicely with the hand that isn't holding her cigarette, "when's, uh, it coming out?"

Brigitta smiles horribly and starts talking about babies.

* * *

After they bring the luggage in and greet the rest of the cousins and Dad's horrible matronly sister and about two billion various horrible and shrieking children, Jade collapses herself onto one of the couch cushions in the main living room. Jefferson hovers awkwardly in the doorframe by her, dripping rainwater nicely onto the hardwood floors.

"Want to hang out with me?" he asks, vibrating with energy, and she knows he wants to be out in the rain and mud terrorizing the neighborhood with the rest of the kids.

"Gross," she says. "Don't bug me."

Jeff beams. "Okay!" he says. He hesitates for a second more before dashing off, presumably off back outside. He leaves a trail of muddy footprints.

Jade doesn't really have anything else to do, so she helps Dad put their luggage in their rooms upstairs.

"What now?" she asks dismally once they're out in the hallway.

Dad looks dismal, too. He says, "I think - "

"Alan?" calls the matronly aunt from upstairs. "Are you hiding upstairs? Come down and let us see you!"

Dad looks greatly depressed. "I suppose we can help with dinner," he says.

They slink downstairs very slowly. Dad looks like he's walking towards his hanging, and Jade's sadly sure she looks rather the same. In the kitchen, Dad breaks two plates and lets Jade steal sips of his wine.

* * *

It rains all the next day too and Cat is at the mall again with Vega which makes Jade not want to text her at all, stupid slutty traipsing redhead, so she lays about in a great misery while the adults set up for the party, idly responding to Shapiro's texts that start flooding in at about two PM. Earlier he was probably visiting his dad.

There are about five gigantic tents set up in the yard, and Jade mills through them with purpose, picking at food and watching in disgust at the squaredancing couples of her family under the biggest one. Jeff is eating fried frogs' legs and looking happy about it. He smells like garlic. Some of the cousins find her and force her to sit at their table and they question her about Hollywood Arts and other boring things.

"Are you still dating that boy?" one asks. "The one with the hair?"

Jade stares at them for a moment in horror before she realizes the one with the hair is actually Beck. "No," she says. "He dumped me."

"Oh." The cousins look upset. Jade smiles tightly. Shapiro texts her a terrible joke about long division. Then he asks, _What are you doing?_

Jade tells him that, shockingly, her family is actually more boring than he is. She asks him what he's doing –_ not that i care, of course_.

_Of course not,_ Shapiro responds, with a little smiling emoticon that makes her roll her eyes. He tells her that he's at Beck. Beck is making him watch a Sylvester Stallone movie – _I don't really understand anything that is going on. I think the government is evil._

Jade smiles (she does not send an emoticon). _welcome to the 90s._ Shapiro tells her that earlier, he'd gotten so bored while Beck did his hair, he'd eaten two pretzels. He'll pay for that later, Jade tells him.

_Yeah, I know,_ Shapiro says, with a frowny emoticon.

Jade says,_ i hope you clog his toilet._

_Uh. I'll let you know. Do you think we have boundary issues?_

_Probs._

Shapiro lambasts her use of the word 'probs.'

She enjoys abbreviating simple words to bother him, especially since last week, when Shapiro had tried to say 'maybe' to her about some silly question she'd had about homework, choked on his iced tea, and croaked out 'mayb' instead. Jade had howled. "Are you on MTV Cribs?" she'd hollered. "Is that the new thing?"

"May_be_," Shapiro had cried out frantically, probably sensing oncoming ridicule, correcting himself and still choking a little.

"_Mayb_ you are?" Jade yelled, and put her head down on the table laughing, imagining Shapiro wearing a backwards cap and talking slang with Chris Brown. Robbie had looked very confused, and still had looked as such after she'd stopped laughing long enough to explain herself.

"You are actually a very strange girl," he'd said mildly.

"Says Robbie Shapiro, walking downtown throwing gang signs all over West LA," Jade had said in a silly voice, and cracked up again. Shapiro had just watched her and smiled a small smile. He drank his iced tea and corrected her Geometry homework.

"Jade," is all he'd said, "you know how to find the circumference."

It took everything in her not to shout "maybs!" in his face.

He'd waved his pen at her. She looked doubtfully down at problem 18, which she hasn't done and he hasn't taken the liberty of finishing for her. "Show your work," he said.

Jade looks up from his texts, smiling a little absently, and takes note of all the cousins staring at her. Oh, crud, they probably asked her another insipid question that she doesn't care to answer. She stares back, says, "I gotta … yeah." She stands abruptly and leaves the table.

She wanders out through the yard, heading as far away from her loud family as possible, finally collapsing in a forgotten lawn chair that's been parked close beside the house. She taps through her PearPhone idly, feeling the light rain drops spatter down on her shoulders.

_Tori Vega says: Matching hair bows with Cat? Me-ow! ;)_

God! Splashface is so stupid! The stupidest website, made to piss people off when they're away at family parties and can't keep their best friends away from half-latina wenches. Jade snarls and closes out of the website, bringing up her inbox to check the new message Shapiro's sent her.

_It's not like I don't like seeing Beck, but his taste in movies really sucks. I'm so bored. I even miss the Scissoring soundtrack. I wish you were here!_

Jade frowns down at her phone for a long moment, tapping at the keys and then erasing what she's wrote twice. Sometimes she just really – god, never knows what to say to Shapiro! He's such a strange duck. She doesn't know how someone can be so closed-off yet so oddly open, keeping everyone at bay but wearing his heart on his sleeve. He doesn't say much that's important a lot, but when he does, he says what he means.

People don't _do_ that. _She_ doesn't _do_ that. It makes her feel weird.

She bites her lip, fitfully tapping out her reply. _Yeah, me too. _She hesitates for a few more seconds before she allows herself to hit send. That's all right, yeah? It's not like it means anything big.

Shapiro doesn't respond for the rest of the day, and she absolutely wants to break her PearPhone into a thousand million pieces. The jerk! She could just send him another message, she guesses, something silly, it's not like it matters, but still – the _jerk!_

It's only a few minutes before ten when she goes to bed that night – Uncle Bernard's house is way bigger than Uncle Richard's, seriously a mansion, and she and Jeff have their own separate guest rooms when they stay here. Jeff and the four thousand cousins and other kin have set up shop in the living room, watching some stupid animated film, and Jade just can't deal with that right now, _seriously_. It's a very long drive home in the morning, and she'd told Jeff they'd write Mad-Libs in the car – God, looking forward to that – so she needs her beauty sleep.

She's curled up in the stupid kitten comforter and has her headbuds in, playing some soothing girl-rock to take her off to sleep, when she feels the buzzing on her phone from under her pillow. After a moment, she picks her head up, tugging the PearPhone up to her face to read the message she's gotten. It's from Robbie.

_Hi, I'm sorry! Just left Beck's. He got jealous that I was texting during the movie and stole my phone. Deleted ALL my messages! Did you send anything?_

Oh. Well. That's all right, then. But it doesn't mean she has to say it (well, type, you know, whatever) again. She feels a bit better, snuggling back down on the pillow, even as she types out: _nah, not really._

**AN: I've had most of this one written for a while, so don't think I am actually a robot. I was going to wait a few days to post it, but changed my mind! Might as well get it out. As always, thank you for reviewing! :)_  
_**

**Oh, also, I want to write some oneshots, so please go vote on the poll in my bio!  
**


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter Twenty-Six**

One afternoon she's sitting in the living room reading when Dad comes home from work, gives her a decidedly covert look, sets his briefcase down beside the coffee table, and scurries back towards the front door.

Jade closes her book and leans forward dangerously on the couch. "Hey!" she says. "You! What're you doing?"

Dad hesitates at the door, his back to her. "I have a present for you," he says. "I don't want you to see it. I'm going to bring it in through the kitchen."

"What?" Jade leaps to her feet. "What is it? What do you got? Can I eat it?"

Dad hesitates some more. "You – no," he says. "I hope you won't. It's alive."

"_What?_"

"Kitchen," says Dad, and scurries off.

Jade jumps off the couch and dashes after him to the door, but Dad can be surprisingly quick sometimes, and it slams in her face. She lets out a little growl of surprise, glaring at the door in frustration before turning and beginning to stalk towards the kitchen.

Dad comes through the side door a moment later, huge gray overcoat over one arm. Beneath the jacket, something gives out a strange-sounding whistle.

"The hell?" cries Jade.

Dad smiles. He moves over to the kitchen table and stands there pointedly for a minute until Jade snarls and comes forward to move the stupid fruit bowl to the side. With an embarrassing flourish, Dad sweeps his coat to the side and sets a little metal cage on the table.

Jade stares. "What is that?"

"Voila," says Dad. "Meet your new pet."

Jade stares some more. The cage is small and a little rusty, and completely empty aside from a tiny igloo that's made to look as if it's carved from stone. "Uh," she says. "Well."

"Oh." Dad frowns. He moves forward, leaning across the table, and gives the cage a little shake. From the igloo, something squeals in alarm.

"Jesus Christ!" says Jade, and slaps his hand away. "Be careful! What the hell is it?"

Dad looks happy. "Subject Q," he says.

"You freak of nature," Jade growls, and begins poking at the cage, unlatching the door at the top. She hesitates, glaring doubtfully at the small igloo, before reaching in and pulling it up. It trembles and squeaks as she takes it out of the cage to revel a tiny, fluffy bit of a thing. "What is _that?_"

Dad looks happier. "It is a guinea pig," he says, ever informative.

The guinea pig – she's never seen one so small! – hoots and shivers, looking up at them with surprisingly large black eyes. Jade purses her lips at it thoughtfully. "Where'd you get it?"

"The environmental sciences department is abandoning its most recent project," Dad says, taking the igloo from her and turning it around in his hands. Jade instantly regrets asking, as she doesn't care. "They had over a dozen specimens that needed to go. I selected the cutest one."

"_What_ most recent project?"

"Aha," says Dad. "Ahm. What project? We don't even have an environmental sciences branch, darling. Forget I said that."

Jade rolls her eyes at him, then eyes the guinea pig with consideration. "And this is for me?"

"Yes," says Dad. "Well, if you want it. I thought – you haven't exactly had the warmest reception for him."

Jade frowns down at the guinea pig, reaching into the cage to prod the small creature with a finger. "He looks cold," she says. "Did you buy him any hay or something?"

"I don't think he's cold," says Dad in distress.

"He's shaking!"

"Because you are so terrifying, my dear, especially to small mammals."

"Oh, shut up!" Jade snaps, and the guinea pig hoots in fear. "Aw!" Jade says. "Not you." She reaches into the cage again, frowning, trying to remember how to pick up these things. Cat had had a stupid hamster freshman year, they were sort of the same, right? She slides her hand under the pig and holds her other against his back, cupping him as she lifts him from the cage. "Poor thing. My dad is so awful, isn't he? He didn't buy you any food or a water dish, huh?"

Dad gives out an indignant little cough. "Excuse me," he says. "I _rescued_ this creature. There were files that needed to be deleted, Jade Ottelia. And we can go to Pets Plus."

Jade holds the guinea pig up to her face and pouts at him. "Files to be deleted! Poor Quentin."

"Ah – Quentin?" says Dad.

Jade glowers. "I want to keep him in my room. Gimme back the igloo."

Dad complies.

"He's going to need a new cage," Jade continues. "Did you steal this rust trap from work? God, you are probably going to get arrested." Dad makes a small noise, possibly of protest. "I need to buy a book on these things – what do they even eat? I hope you aren't expecting me to pay for his stuff, either. Oh, he's going to need a water bottle, too. Do you have your credit card?"

* * *

"Who's the cutest pig?" Jade asks Quentin, who hoots complacently. She scratches behind his tiny ears. "Yes! You are!"

From where he's sitting on her bedroom floor, crumpled papers surrounding him, Robbie makes a soft strangled noise.

Jade leans over the edge of her bed to glower at him. "_What_?"

"Nothing," squeaks Robbie. He sends her a small smile – whatever – and then returns his gaze to the script he's looking over. He sighs.

Jade covertly blows Quentin a kiss. Robbie exhales again, a little louder this time. Jade groans, flops over onto her belly (the bed bounces, sending Quentin flying an inch into the air).

"Does King Dork need attention?" she asks sweetly.

Robbie emits another long-suffering sigh. "Sikowitz made new edits," he says, and shakes the screenplay up at her. "Now scene five starts with me swinging onto the stage on a flaming rope."

Jade feels a huge grin slide across her face. Last week, Sikowitz had cast Robbie as the lead in the new play he was writing. He claims it to be his magnum opus. It's a retelling of Taming of the Shrew, sort of. Robbie, shockingly, is not the shrew.

"Sounds sexy."

"Well, we can't actually start fires on school grounds."

Jade gives him a sultry look. "You start a fire in my heart every time I look at you, Shapiro."

Robbie blinks.

Jade frowns thoughtfully. "That was too much, huh? Too gushy, yeah. Start a fire in my _pants_, baby baby, you – "

"Rude and incorrigible."

"Bored and going crazy," Jade corrects sternly, and reaches out to shove at his shoulder, because she can. "Put that shit away! We're supposed to be working on the screenplay."

"Supposed to be working on the screenplay," Robbie mimics in a disturbingly apt impression of her. "The screenplay is finished, Jade. We've been shooting all week."

Jade scowls. "Well, we need to talk about Danny."

"What about him?"

She considers. "I hate him."

Robbie looks dismal, and nods a little. "I hate him, too. But we cast him."

"I know." Jade lays her head back on the pillow, plucks Quentin up so that he can rest on her belly. "Don't poop," she warns him.

"I already had my daily bowel movement."

Ugh! "Not you!"

"Oh." Robbie looks cowed. "I mean, nevermind." From below her, the sound of papers fluttering. "When do you wanna film the scenes with the Sun Dog? My neighbors say I can take Grizzly any day this week."

Jade purses her lips, thinking. Grizzly is – obviously – Robbie's neighbor's dog. Jade doesn't know how scary he looks, but she supposes she can edit something together for their film. They need a bunch of pictures of a mangled-looking black dog sniffing by a fence, then charging, and they plan on filming it at her house. "Maybe Thursday? Sophia won't be home 'til late. She'll flip if she sees another animal here."

"Is she still mad about Quentin?"

"Not really," Jade says slowly. When she and Dad had gone to Pets Plus at the beginning of the week, they'd sort of had a little talk about Quentin. Dad had kept looking over at her as he was driving. He'd said, "It's nice of you to keep your brother out of trouble."

"Huh?" Jade had said.

"I know you didn't really break Sophia's vacuum."

Jade had shot him a suspicious glare. "And you know this how?"

"You breaking the vacuum would entail you actually using the vacuum. You know, doing chores. Being productive around the household."

Jade snorted. "What, are you going to rat me out? He's already grounded. She'd probably starve him."

"She would not starve him," said Dad. "Anyway, it was very courageous of you." Clearly, he understands Sophia's mood swings. "It makes me think of my own brothers and sister. Did I ever tell you about the grease fire in the shed at our summer home?"

"Yes, Dad, _please,_" Jade moaned. "It's nothing like the stupid grease fire, okay? I just feel bad for Jeff's stupid face sometimes."

Dad happily merged into the shopping center. "You're growing up, Junebug."

VOMIT! Jade scowled into the metal cage at Quentin and his igloo. "So what is this, like a reward or something?"

"No," said Dad. "It's just coincidental that Subject Q needed new housing."

Jade rolled her eyes. "Right."

Anyway – despite all this, Sophia didn't know that Jade hadn't been the one who broke her vacuum filter. She'd been pretty mad that Dad had brought a pet into the household for Jade, especially a _rodent_. God, if only Quentin were a rat! A hairless rat! She'd put him in Sophia's underwear drawer all the time. Maybe he'd poop in there.

She tells Robbie, "She's dealing with him. He's not supposed to leave my room."

Robbie pouts a little, which is gross, and reaches up to pat Quentin. "But he's so cute!"

"I know!" says Jade. She coos a little at Quentin. Robbie makes another small strangled sound. "God, _what?_"

"Nothing," squeaks Robbie again. "It's just – um – odd – to see you, being nice to something."

Jade scowls. "I can be nice, Robot."

"I know." He smiles up at her.

He _knows_? Ugh! He doesn't know! He's still looking, which makes her feel sort of weird, so she just growls again. "I'm hungry."

"Shocking."

Jade makes a sound that can only be described as "!" and reaches over to smack him again. He's been getting far too mouthy with her lately. Also, she doesn't want to be thinking of his mouth any, does she? "So why're you just sitting there? Go make me a sandwich!"

Robbie squeaks again. "But your dad is in the kitchen."

"So what? Go talk to him about hemoglobin or something. Go talk to him about Jim Croce!"

Robbie grunts a little, sliding to his feet. He glowers at her for a moment – tries to glower, at any rate. It doesn't really work for him, as he's the least intimidating person ever. Even Cat's scarier than him. Sometimes she can display disturbing upper-body strength. "I don't like Jim Croce," Robbie says, heading to the door.

"I also require a soda," Jade calls sweetly to his back.

"Yes Master," Robbie says, sounding like he's rolling his eyes, but since she can't see it, she just makes a happy noise, turning back to Quentin.

**AN: Short little chapter to keep things going! I had more written, but it doesn't really fit in here, so next time!**** This is really the length I'd****_ like_**** the chapters to be, but I get all carried away.**


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter Twenty-Seven**

Sinjin Van Cleef was at her house. The world really must be coming to an end next year.

Earlier, at school, waiting for Sinjin to gather his filming equipment, Jade had pursed her lips consideringly. "Can we at least blindfold him on the way there?"

Robbie was securing the portable camera on the desk beside her, and he took pause long enough to send a half-hearted appalled look her way. "_Jade!_" he exclaimed, all shocked. She had to admit she did rather enjoy that flustered tone, and sometimes would work to get it. "That's not nice!"

He'd been excited all day because King Dork the Second had offered to help them shoot their outdoor scenes. Jade herself was, you know, not so excited. Why couldn't they just film the scenes themselves? They didn't need an outside party to hog the film credits, she'd said. Robbie had hemmed and hawed and looked sad. But King Dork was the best cameraman in school, he pointed out. Didn't she want the best for their film? And so here they were - Jade lowering her standards down to zero to risk being spotted in the audio/visual classroom - waiting for SinJin to pack up his things and journey to her house. To her house! God!

Jade leaned her hip on the desk beside Robbie. "He does not need to know my address."

Now Robbie looked flustered in addition to sounding it, which she also enjoyed. "He can _hear_ you!"

"It's okay," said Sinjin around his camera. He gave them a lopsided grin. "You can blindfold me if you want, Jadelyn."

"Gross," said Jade, wrinkling her nose at him. "And that's _not_ my name."

Sinjin waggled his eyebrows at her and tossed a handful of weird seeds into his mouth. Jade tried not to vomit.

Adjusting the camera strap across his skinny chest, Robbie cleared his throat softly to distract her. "So, uh," he said, "your car is working all right?"

"Yeah." The Gremlin's fuel pump had cost her over two hundred bucks to buy and have installed – so much for a potential new spring wardrobe. "For now." She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear absently, musing. "I think I need to find a new mechanic. Don't trust my dad's guys - he's such a sucker."

Robbie frowned in concern, which was annoying. "Why, is something else wrong with it?"

Jade gave him a wry glower. "Um, you ever seen my car? Everything's wrong with it." Robbie frowned some more, so she elaborated before he could ask: "Dunno, the wheel is shaking a lot. They said they fixed the head gasket too, but who the chizz knows. It's still backfiring."

"I said I could look at it for you," Robbie said, apparently deciding that the AV room was a fine place to lecture her on car upkeep. "I don't know if you recall, but Beck and I_ did_ take that automobile maintenance class last year. I change the oil in my mother's car! I would have put the pump in yours for you."

Lascivious smile. "I bet you would have put the pump in mine."

Robbie - as she wanted him to - flushed heavily, abruptly dropping his chin down to gaze at the camera as he popped the covering onto the lens. "You are so - ! I can do some things, you know, I can look at your car if you - "

"Dude! Forget about my car, okay? It's fine, it's running, it's working."

"Fine," Robbie said doubtfully.

"_Fine,_" she repeated, glowering at him so he'd drop it.

"Okay." Robbie had flashed her a particularly nervous grin, turning slightly so that he could look at Sinjin as well. "So ... um, so I'll just meet you guys at your house."

Jade's face had gone perfectly blank for a moment before she understood and glared daggers at him. "_Excuse_ me?"

"Ulp!" Robbie squeaked. "I have to – with the dog! I have to pick up the dog! You, you can just take Sin to your house, maybe make yourself a coffee while you wait for me – "

Oh my God! First of all, _Sin!_ Second of all, Robbie Shapiro, master of evil plans! He wanted to fob King Dork the Second off on her! He probably thought he could get her to _hang __out _with Sinjin! God, as it was, she'd probably have to be alone with him for at least a half hour! Shapiro thinks too much of her - he thinks that just because she sometimes tolerates him, she'll be nice to all the little creatures of Dorkland, casting mercy on Sinjin and probably, like, making organic hot chocolate for him as soft Disney music plays in the background for ambiance -

"Why can't he go with _you?_"

"It's not practical" – Robbie frowned – "for him to, well, don't you need time to set up the camera, Sinjin?"

Sinjin leaned heavily on his desk. "I mean, I'm pretty fast." He waggled his eyebrows again.

What? Ew.

"Shut up," Jade commanded him. Sinjin looked mildly frightened, but not as much as she had hoped for. She really did think that hanging with Robbie has been ruining her street cred. She'd only been able to make one freshman cry this week!

"Um," said Robbie haltingly, glancing to her again. "Okay. Well, he can come with me if he wants – "

"I don't mind going with Jade," Sinjin said quickly, and came around the side of the desk to stand disgustingly too-close to her, hovering and looking stupid with the tripod camera.

Jade felt another growl escape her throat. She couldn't help the noises she made sometimes – they just came out. People should try to enrage her much less. "I hate you, Shapiro," she grunted out, and started trudging towards the parking lot.

Robbie squeaked in sadness. "I won't be long!" he said, and grabbed up Sinjin's elbow to drag him after Jade.

Sinjin looked happy.

Out by her car, Jade stabbed at the driver's side lock with her key. "Can you fit in the trunk?" she snarled.

Sinjin looked considering.

"_Jade!_" Robbie's scandalized tone floated over from across the near-empty parking lot.

Growl again. "You can sit in the backseat."

Sinjin waited patiently as she struggled open her door and unlocked the backseat for him. She slid into the driver's seat and sat scowling as King Dork II precariously situated his camera and backpack, then she took off with a screech before he'd managed to close his own door. Sinjin screamed slightly, but did not fall out, much to her eternal chagrin.

She doesn't even know why he'd even agreed to ride with her. He really didn't have any common sense, did he? He'd done pretty good with avoiding her since September - she hadn't_ meant to_ run him over in the parking lot, it's just that she'd been too busy arguing with Beck to really check all her blind spots, and what had he been doing creeping by her trunk anyway? - but apparently he was over that now. It had only been a sprained leg, anyhow; she hadn't been driving very fast. And his parents had been very nice to her and Dad and Sophia - no lawsuits (not that they would win, anyway - Dad would represent himself, and he'd never lost a case), and his insurance had covered the ambulance fee.

Still, though, maybe she should try to be a little nicer to him. It couldn't hurt, right? And it would make Shapiro happy with her, and when he was happy with her, he generally bought her dessert foods.

Sinjin cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses as Jade turned on her signal and merged out onto the highway. "So, Jade, at your house, can I possibly use – "

"NO!" screamed Jade.

Sinjin whimpered. Yup, this was about as nice as she could get.

* * *

The week passes in a blur of irritating boys. Filming with Sinjin, filming with Danny. Sinjin had been at her house for _two whole_ afternoons, spreading his dork-ness all over her backyard! But he had taken some great shots of Grizzly, though - she'd give him that. Also, the dog had peed on him twice, which had really brightened her day. She'd even gotten him a class of juice that afternoon, she'd been in such a good mood from it.

Filming with Danny - well, trying to, at any rate. They probably had a whole reel of rejected footage of him saying the wrong line, Jade screaming at him from off-camera, Danny screaming back, Jade advancing, and then Robbie rushing in front of the camera to diffuse the oncoming fight.

So, yes, a more apt description would be _attempting_ to film with Danny, then eating lots of frozen yogurt up in her room with Robbie and Quentin to make up for the horrors of the not-filming with Danny. Hanging out after school in the Black Box waiting for Robbie to finish his stupid play rehearsal so that she can make him drive her places.

Friday, they're actually leaving school on time, intent on another day of shooting, this time at Robbie's house. Jade's not too optimistic about going home for the weekend - Sophia had come home early yesterday and hadn't been very pleased to find a giant black Newfoundland dog in the front yard, happily eating from her azaleas as two bespectacled boys rolled camera around him and Jade ate chocolate from the porch. "Dad said it was okay," Jade had said automatically, since he had, and that had sparked a fight between her parents - her, her _parent,_ that is, and whatever Sophia was, and that was making her feel like crap. Dinner last night had been a taunt affair of silence and scraping forks on plates and Sophia's eyebrows drawn down in a severe line. Jade knew that Dad would always stand up for her, but wishes she could stop herself from playing it so hard sometimes.

She's got all her books for the weekend, she's got her early afternoon coffee, and she and Robbie are about to head to the parking lot, when a blue-and-purple Nerf ball flies through the air and hits Robbie square in the forehead, sending his glasses flying. He emits a particularly wondrous squawking sound and flails about.

"I'm hit!" he shrieks, and faceplants on the hard tiles of the hallway.

Jade feels instantly cheered. "What d'ya want, Sikowitz?"

Sikowitz's partially fuzzy head peeps suddenly around the corner. "I spy two students attempting to leave school grounds unauthorized!"

Robbie grumbles something into the floor that sounds very much like, "Completely crazy."

"School's _over_," Jade reminds their teacher, crossing her arms, trying not to smirk. Sikowitz _is_ her favorite teacher for a reason, particularly when he causes bodily harm to other students.

Sikowitz's head disappears, and a moment later another Nerf ball comes flying at her (Jade sidesteps it easily, and it bounces harmlessly off of Robbie's butt). "Not for my apt pupils, it isn't!"

Robbie moans in dismay.

"Don't be insolent, Mister Shapiro," Sikowitz warns as a tuft of his hair peeks around the corner again. "We need to discuss my theatrical prowess."

Robbie moans louder.

"I'm calling a group meeting in two minutes," Sikowitz informs them, leaning further out into the hall. "To the theater! I fear that you two children are going to be late. _Late!_ I would like to speak to you all about group dynamics and the harmony of our roles within the family."

"The ... what now?" Jade says.

Sikowitz beams. "Also, Robbie," he says jovially, "I've tweaked the script a bit more! How does the ambiance of a waterfall kiss strike you?"

"Kill me," says Robbie into the floor.

Sikowitz looks contemplative – possibly for theatrical purposes.

"I have too much science homework for this," Robbie continues. "I can't keep – "

"Cease your complaints, boy!" Sikowitz booms, and pelts Robbie with two more Nerf balls in rapid succession before crying out, "_Late!_" once more and disappearing towards the theater.

Jade looks after him for a moment, then smirks down at Robbie. He remains immobile and sad.

"At least he referred to you as a boy this time," she says dryly.

Robbie moans a third time.

"How the mighty have fallen," Jade intones.

Robbie makes a sad noise into the floor. "I don't want to kiss Cat under a waterfall, Jade," he says.

Cat is playing lead opposite Robbie. Ever since Sikowitz had changed the script at the beginning of the week to include a kiss between the two, Shapiro has been hyperventilating and squawking and worrying and generally driving Jade utterly insane with it. Yesterday, waiting for Danny in the library, she'd tried to duct tape his mouth shut (rather not politely, he hadn't sat still for her, and they'd gotten detention).

What's the big deal about a stage kiss for a play? Surely he's done it before. She thinks he's had to kiss Trina or something last year for a show, right, hadn't they? Not that that really counts, because Trina isn't actually a person - she was related to Tori, after all. He's probably still hung up on Cat, though, which must be why he's freaking out over it at such volume. Jade's not quite sure why the fact irritates her as much as it does.

"You sure changed your tune from a few months ago," she just says lightly.

A little thoughtfully, Robbie tells the floor, "I assure you I've actually never wanted to kiss Cat under a waterfall. That's unhygienic."

Jade prods him with a foot. "Get up, Gonzo."

"_Gonzo – _"

"If you're lucky, maybe you'll get to enact it right at the meeting. Vega and I can spray you guys with our water bottles and it'll be like it's opening night."

Robbie groans again, sitting up slowly and feeling around on the floor for his glasses. "I may actually die if that happens," he tells her. "I may die of mortification. And then won't you feel bad?"

"Not really."

Robbie grumbles, standing, and Jade shoots him a sweet smirk, turning to head towards the Black Box. "Come along, Gepetto."

"Oh, we're back to that one," he mutters to her back. Again, "_Gonzo?_"

She feels her smirk widen into a smile. "Because your nose is so big."

"Oh. Right. Thanks."

Also, Gonzo's her favorite, but he doesn't need to know _that_ part.

A few moments later, Robbie is sitting next to her at the huge fold-out table that's been set up in the auditorium, looking vexed. He's got his Bio Lab notebook hidden in his lap, and now and then he scribbles frantically into it, trying to finish a write-up he'd been complaining about to her earlier.

He gives a rather hopeless look towards the clock. They're supposed to be meeting Danny in about a half hour, and if they're a moment late the little twerp will probably high-tail it out and leave them unable to film for another day.

Jade isn't very concerned. If Danny bails on them, then she won't have to see his stupid weasel face for the day, and also she can make Robbie take her for ice cream.

She watches as Robbie looks around. Vega's slumped down across from him, absently braiding a few strands of her stupid hair together. Beck's shifting back and forth in his chair, trying to catch the rays of light that fall into the theater _just so_ as to make his own hair sparkle. Andre's asleep with his head on the table, and Cat's chewing what appears to be two whole packs of Bibble Gum beside him. Sinjin is with one of his AV cronies, breaking lighting equipment down a few yards away on the stage.

"So ... anytime anyone wants to say something," Robbie says hopefully.

"What?" Sikowitz finally looks up from where he's been fretting over a papercut for the past five minutes. He frowns around at them. "Children, what are you still doing here?!"

Robbie emits a squeak, flustered. "You – you_ just_ called us here! You want to talk about group harmony!"

Sikowitz's face clears. "Oh! Yes. Well, I suppose that's enough for today!"

Robbie stares at him balefully.

"I don't think we should leave yet," Beck says, stretching his arms luxuriously out across the table. "I think we should all stay until we all tell each other something we love about each other. That's trust-building, right?"

Sikowitz beams. "An intelligent thought, being voiced for once by Mister Oliver? Splendid!"

Beck also looks at him balefully. Jade smirks.

Shapiro casts another dour glance towards the clock, pointing dangerously to three-thirty now. He makes a low-pitched yet somehow high yowl of frustration, and grips his pen very hard. He sort of sounds like Miss Piggy, having discovered Kermit's just eaten the last Krispy Kreme. Jade grins down into her coffee.

"Cat, you start!" Sikowitz waves his hand with the paper cut. "_Speak_ to _Tori_, Cat," he says very exaggeratedly, as if speaking to a child.

Cat beams across the table at Tori and considers the brunette for a moment. "You're pretty," she says happily. "I like looking atcha."

Tori smiles back. "You're pretty, too, Cat," she says. The girls share a sweet smile.

Jade scowls. "Someone could say _I'm_ pretty," she says grumpily into the tabletop.

"You _are_ pretty," Shapiro says absently, and scribbles fitfully into his notebook. Oh.

"Yeah!" squeals Tori. "You're _beautiful_, Jade!"

"Oh, shut up, Vega!"

Tori looks hurt.

"Robbie," Beck says, still stretching, "so what do you like about me?"

Robbie stares blankly at Beck before briefly closing his eyes in frustration and deciding to play along. Innocently, he asks, "Like, or love?"

Beck beams. He lids his eyes in an exaggeratedly heavy way and intones: "_Love._"

Jade rolls her eyes so hard that she's surprised they don't fall out of her head and onto the table. Shapiro snorts and rolls his eyes too, smiling a little. Covertly, he writes an equation into his lap. "Um, I love – uh" – he's getting distracted by science again – "I love your dimples, Beck."

Cat sighs at the sweetness of it. Beck frowns. "I don't have dimples, Rob," he says.

"You do in – ah, certain lights," Robbie mutters, still writing in his notebook. Jade peers at it with interest.

"What're you staring at in Robbie's lap?" Cat asks her.

Beck and Robbie squeak. Jade glowers at the girl. "Nothing!"

Sikowitz looms dangerously. "Robbie Shapiro, the lead in my greatest play, wouldn't be doing something so menial as _science homework_ at our trust meeting, would he?"

"_No!_" says Robbie in distress, and abruptly jams the notebook down his pants. Across the table, Andre grunts quietly in his sleep.

Sikowitz hums loudly and doubtfully. "Okay, Robbie – " he claps both of his hands down onto Robbie's shoulders, and the boy squeaks again – "go on, tell Jade something you love about her."

Robbie yips again. "Wh – what? I just told Beck!"

"Did you?" asks Sikowitz absently. "Well, I wasn't listening."

"You – but I just – isn't there some sort of order to this, perhaps a linear structure – "

"Yes, the linear structure is whomever I pick," says Sikowitz in severity. "Go on, tell Jade why you love her."

Robbie glances over at her doubtfully. "Um. L-like, or love?"

Jade smirks at him, and lids her eyes at him as Beck had done. "_Love._"

"Oh lord!" yelps Robbie, twitching. "So you can kill me later!"

"Mister Shapiro!" Sikowitz shakes him. Jade continues smirking, quirks an eyebrow at him.

"Fine, fine!" Robbie's voice has reached near Cat-like levels of high. He clears his throat, and says in a slightly more normal tone (but not really normal, you know, nothing about Shapiro is very normal), "Okay. Um, Jade, I love your … " He pauses thoughtfully, frowning.

Jade grunts. "Oh, it's just so hard to think of something, isn't it!"

"It is not hard!" yelps Robbie, as dogs all over LA collapse on the ground due to hearing loss. He clears his throat again. "Um. You. Jade. You are. A very loyal friend. I don't think many people see that. You have, um, tenacity. Um. It's good. I admire that."

"Do you _love_ that?" Sikowitz asks, leaning intensely between them.

"Yes, yes I do!" Robbie squeals. "Please just take your hands off me! I'm feeling very claustrophobic!"

Sikowitz beams once more, unhanding him, and he floats over to the opposite side of the table to clap his hand down upon Vega's shoulders. Tori looks suitably uncomfortable, dropping her braid.

Jade's very quiet, thinking. So Shapiro thinks she's a good friend? Why would he think that? And a good friend to whom? She hasn't shown him any reason to –

"Ah, Jade," sighs Sikowitz, breaking in on her thoughts. "The time has come, my darling starling, for you to shine once again. Jade, I'd like you to tell Tori something you appreciate about her."

Everyone at the table (and Sinjin and Burf up on the stage) turn to look at her with great interest.

Jade's still frowning, though, trying to work out in her head why Robbie would think she's something akin to _tenacious,_ why he even knows what that word means – "Um, Vega, your dancing turtle necklace is really cute, I love it."

Tori beams hugely. "I got it at Glitter Gloss," she says happily. "Cat and I are going there again this weekend. Want to come with us?"

"Whatever," Jade retorts absently. She's looking over at Robbie, who's now struggling to pull the crumpled papers out of the waistband of his skinny jeans. He must feel her gaze on him, for her lifts his eyes up to meet hers and shoots her an embarrassed little smile.

She feels a strange little jolt as he looks back at her. She pulls her eyes away, lets the group chatter on around her as she sits idle. She thinks she may have a very big problem.

**AN: Guys, I swear I'm not losing interest in the fandom! Just very busy lately, many finals, much work, family drama, very tired. Anyhow, I enjoyed writing these two short scenes very much, particularly the Sikowitz one. Most of this was written several weeks ago, and I came back recently to finish it, so – ignore the fact that I referenced The Muppets twice. Completely unintentional. **

**Expect another chapter soon - perhaps this weekend; just wanted to get this one out there first, as it isn't very long.**


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter Twenty-Eight**

What problem? There's no problem.

There's not enough of - of _anything_ for there to be a problem, really. And besides that, it doesn't matter anyway, does it?

Does _what_ matter, exactly?

Nothing. Because there's no problem. Right?

There's no problem. No, no problem at all. That's why she's having a very loud argument with herself in her head.

Because she is good at it, Jade takes hold of it, the – the _not-problem_, that strange feeling that had overcome her in the Black Box, and she locks it away. She locks it far, far away, and very deep down, in the part of her brain labeled _unimportant_. Later, when she's alone, she can unlock it, take it out, and dissect it – if she needs to.

Sometimes she does need to. Sometimes these things that are locked away – the way she feels about Mom, the way she's felt about Beck – threaten to burst out, and then they rattle around, shaking, throughout her entire body, but this thing is – this is just _Robbie_, and it shouldn't be a problem.

She doesn't need any more problems.

She stays pretty quiet for the rest of Sikowitz's insipid trust meeting, even when Sikowitz spills the rest of his coconut milk on Andre as a wake-up call and Andre positively just screams for _three whole minutes _over it. She'd like to laugh along with the others, but she doesn't trust herself to, doesn't want to take the chance of catching Shapiro's eye again. She's quiet as the rest of the group filters out, nodding sort of absently at Cat when the girl burbles on at her about mall plans this weekend; she's quiet as Shapiro slowly rises and smooths out his crumpled-up science papers and frowns around at the clock some more.

"Well," he says, "I guess no Danny today."

"Yeah," she responds shortly.

Shapiro sighs, possibly in relief. "Oh well!" he says, switching over to jovial. "Do you want to get something to eat?"

"No," she says, and Robbie takes pause and blinks at her, because she's never turned down food before. "I mean, I just – gotta get home."

"Oh, okay." He looks a little disappointed, and Jade feels sort of badly for a second. She wonders again if he's still fighting with his sister, if she's still freezing him out. He's always sort of reluctant to go home as well, she knows. But she doesn't – she can't – that's not her problem, is it? She feels wary about even glancing up at his face right now, she doesn't want to – to _be_ with him for the rest of the afternoon, looking at him and_ thinking_ things, thinking things that are stupid and unimportant anyway. "Well, if you wanna hang out tomorrow – "

"Hello, I have plans with Cat, or did you just not hear her talking to me?" Jade snaps, despite the fact that she actually has very little intention of wasting away at the mall with Cat and Vega this weekend. She pushes roughly to her feet, the metal chair scuffing loudly against the floor.

Robbie blinks again. "Okay," he says nicely. "That's good, right? I mean, you haven't seen her much lately" –

Stupid Shapiro, noticing things about her life!

"Whatever," she growls, interrupting him. "Would you just get your shit so we can go already? Jesus!"

Robbie yelps, scrabbling to gather up his papers. Jade glowers at him, then starts a little, shocked at herself. Why the hell is she waiting for him? She has her own car today; they aren't going to meet with Danny. There's no need for Shapiro to drive her to his house, then back to Hollywood Arts later. She's just become so accustomed to waiting for him after school – _always_ waiting for him and never the opposite, he always moves so slowly through the halls, looking at everything as if it might change at any moment, stares at the bulletin board in the main hallway for too long, checks twice to make sure he has the right books in his backpack, and then he does this incredibly annoying little thing every single day where he adjusts each strap – that it's a second nature now, being impatient over him.

"You know what, I don't have time to wait for you," she bites out, then snatches her near-empty coffee up from the table and storms off towards the parking lot. If he makes a face after her, she can't see it, because she definitely isn't turning around to look.

* * *

The thing about avoiding Shapiro is that it doesn't work very well when he isn't aware of the fact. It also doesn't work very well because she realizes pretty quickly that she's rather bored without him and doesn't actually _want_ to be avoiding him.

As she'd driven home that day, she'd tried not to think on it much, cranking up Nirvana to block out everything as she generally did, but she had thought of it nonetheless.

Had she hurt his feelings? Had she been too short with him? He hadn't actually _done_ anything to her this time, she was just – well, she was just going absolutely insane, apparently. He wouldn't be so hurt, would he, that she hadn't walked out of school with him?

Shapiro texts her that night about the screenplay – for some reason they always call it the screenplay even though it's into filming now – like nothing's wrong and he isn't potentially setting up to ruin her life. He hadn't even noticed how short she had been with him! What, he just thinks she's so nasty all the time? She makes a terrible face at her phone and tosses it onto her bed, then continues on with her script coding on her PearBook. She gives her phone nasty looks all night until she finally goes to bed, making a point to turn it off without checking her messages.

Sophia is still giving everyone but Jeff the silent treatment the next morning, so she isn't too upset when Cat ambushes her a little before noon, showing up at her house with Tori in tow and begging Jade to go to the Northridge Mall with them. They go into Tunes and into Glitter Gloss and Tori absolutely refuses to go in Build-A-Bra ever ever, and she makes them go to the new taco place in the food court and she spills mild sauce all over the counter. Jade's really wanted to eat at Chili My Bowl, and she hates Glitter Gloss, and Tori and Cat won't stop chattering on about the new Ginger Fox album which Jade obviously has not purchased. Everything is really just so stupid, and it's much easier when she can pull out her PearPhone and text Robbie all of her woes.

_I wouldn't want to go to Glitter Gloss eiether, _Robbie says, sympathetic as he generally is, so she doesn't even bother to point out that he's made a typo and put an extra 'e' in 'either.' She just tells him that everything in there looks like it's suited for a spastic twelve-year-old.

_My sister likes Glitter Gloss._

_yeah. my point._

_She's thirteen now!_

Jade smirks sardonically down at her phone, notes Tori looking at her with interest, and replaces it was a scowl. "_What_?" she growls.

"Nothin'," Tori drawls happily around her chicken quesadilla. "Who ya texting?"

"_No_ one."

"Probably Robbie," Cat says, and giggles, because she is a horrible person.

Jade growls again, and steals the last of Cat's Mexican pizza for herself. "I'm not texting anyone."

"It's totally Robbie," Cat says and slurps her soda.

Jade glowers. Cat's phone begins jingling from the table, and she squeaks happily as she answers it, cooing, "Hi Brown Bear!"

Jade and Tori exchange a brief look of horror, which Cat blithely ignores. Jade considers her third taco, counting the calories like Sophia would, then shrugs, beginning to unwrap it. Why not? She's got no one to impress.

Right?

* * *

Monday – by pure luck only – doesn't start out so bad. She's feeling generous, so she picks Cat up for school and, after a rather spirited argument, she drives twenty minutes out of her way to pick Tori up as well (it may have had something to do with Cat acquiescing simply, "I guess I can ask Robbie to get her," and it's whatever, really, but she doesn't need to be giving Vega and Shapiro all sorts of alone time, letting them get all cozy, does she?). That means that they're a little late, and Cat and Vega are with her at the lockers, so she doesn't have to risk being alone with Robbie, having feelings or looking at his mouth or any such nonsense.

Later, while they're all eating lunch, Cat beaming and giggling beside her, she considers Robbie, sitting to her left, as he eats his salad.

He's just the same as always. His hair, which has grown out a bit, is frizzing slightly (it's drizzling a little, and Jade's got her hood up). Same stupid thick glasses – she watches as he absently pushes them up his nose. His lips are chapped, and - hey, his ears are sort of big. Same stupid red T shirt that he wears at least once a week. Jade thinks Cat's bought it for him a long time ago, and it has some stupid logo on it, frayed white lettering. Brown and gray striped sweater that he's poked holes through for his thumbs. He really can't match to save his life. Stupid black Converse sneakers that he's gotten for Christmas. They're an improvement over the Adidas, but nothing can really help him very much.

There's nothing new or shocking about him. He's the same old kid she's known for three years now. Same kid she's been hanging out with for the past couple months. So what's changed? Why had he made her feel so strangely?

His elbow keeps knocking into her. They're probably sitting too close – sometimes, it's just her and him, or her and him and Cat, and then he sits across from her, but when there's more of the group he's always next her now, on her left. When had he started sitting beside her? He hadn't last year. When had she started to _allow_ it? She doesn't know if he –

Shapiro turns his head slightly to look at her then, trapping her mid-stare, and Jade freezes, caught. He's still chewing his salad – he looks like a damn cartoon rabbit or something – and he pauses to swallow. "Are you still going to help me with my English paper?" he just asks.

"_Oh_," she says severely, because she hadn't expected him to catch her looking. She sends him a little glower for good measure, but he just blinks at her and shovels more food into his mouth. So gross. He does try to keep his mouth shut when he eats, but sometimes it doesn't really work. God, why would she ever – ?! "Yeah, if you give me your french fries."

Robbie shoots her a salad-filled smile. "That's why I bought them," he says.

"Shut your mouth, you hippo," Jade tells him, reaching over to pull the small carton off his lunch tray. She hits at his arm as she does so, poised with his fork to grab up more salad, and he squeaks, bats her back, and they struggle for a moment before she manages to retrieve the french fries. Robbie looks from her to the plate and back, hovers his fork over them. "_Do not _test me, Shapiro."

"Oh. No, I never do." The fork floats back to his own plate.

Jade feels all right, despite the sneaking suspicion that Tori's staring at her again from across the table. Sometimes she feels like Vega has some sort of_ crush_ or fixation on her, and really, that's not very healthy. "You can come over after school."

"Kay kay," says Robbie, happy, and Jade hits him for sounding like Cat.

* * *

They get to her house just as Sophia's transferring the sad and ragged remains of her azaleas to the curb, wrapped up in plastic trash bags. Robbie looks severely guilty and hunches his shoulders as they walk past. "Hi Mrs. West," he says in a hangdog tone.

"Hello Bobby," she replies. Robbie stops on the pavement for a second and looks nonplussed, but Jade grabs his elbow and drags him into the house before he can speak.

In the kitchen, King Dork the First sets studiously about opening his backpack and beginning to spread his papers on the table. Jade putters around, inspecting what's in the cabinets – Dad hasn't bought any more Fat Cakes yet – and opening the fridge, checking what they have to eat. When she turns around, Robbie's looking at her, so she narrows her eyes and asks, "You want something to drink?"

"I'm all right," he says. So what the hell's he looking at? Jade grunts, turns back to the fridge. She's pulling out the leftover's from last night's dinner when Sophia comes into the kitchen, saying, "Bobby, do you want something to eat?"

"I'm all right," Shapiro repeats. He adds, "Thank you." He totally hadn't thanked _her_, Jade thinks, giving out another little indignant grunt and moving to the cabinet once more.

"Jade," Sophia says, "I went to the store today." Who cares? "I just bought a new set of dinnerware."

"Do you want a medal?" Jade asks innocently, reaching up to open the cabinet and pull out a plate.

Sophia's eyes narrow dangerously (much later, Shapiro would tell her that, despite the lack of any true relation, she and Sophia had looked disturbingly similar in that moment). "_No,_" says her stepmother. "I'm only telling you to be careful because – "

The gods of Being Careful have clearly spurned Jade for her entire life, because at that moment somehow her hand snags on absolutely nothing, and instead of simply pulling out a plate as she's done pretty much every single day after school, she someone manages to elaborately knock out and bring four ceramic plates crashing down onto the counter and floor around her.

The loud shattering is implied. Jade stares at the domestic carnage mutely.

Shapiro finishes for Sophia carefully, "- they're fragile?"

Twin decidedly black looks meet him, and then Sophia gives out a flustered sound that's something between a sigh and a snarl, and she comes around the counter to put her hands on Jade's shoulders and edge her out of the way, gasping, "Oh, look what you did!"

"_Don't_ touch me!" Jade hisses, jerking away.

She feels an odd sense of déjà vu – the déjà vu of being a giant disappointment to Sophia, possibly in front of Robbie. She feels like there must be other incidents of this, though she doesn't think she's ever managed to smash more than one set of dinnerware at any particular time, and Sophia doesn't need to be treating her like an infant in front of her friends, or whatever the hell Robbie is.

Sophia pulls her hand away from Jade's shoulder, apparently burned. "I just don't want you to cut yourself," she says in a thin tone.

"I'm not going to – why would you even stack them like that – "

" – excuse me, I didn't know that the whirlwind of misery would be appearing in the kitchen – " Sophia's leaned around her, trying to grab at the dust pan that's hanging on the wall beside them, and she and Jade both grab it at the same time, struggling for a moment –

"I am not a _whirlwind_," Jade growls resentfully, tugging at the pan.

"God, Jade!" Sophia cries out, and Jade relinquishes her hold, a little surprised. "Would you _stop_? Just let me clean it up!"

Jade holds her hand up in surrender, trying to decide whether to scowl or not. "Whatever." She takes a step back, moving carefully over the pile of broken dishes, and then goes back around to the other side of the counter to stand beside where Robbie, who's looking increasingly overwhelmed, is sitting. She leans with her elbows on the counter and watches as Sophia begins to mutter to herself, kneeling down on the floor to sweep up the broken plates.

"Do you need h – " Robbie starts, but is quickly silenced by growls emitted by both girls, and he commences staring at his papers in muted interested.

Jade watches as Sophia gather up the plate pieces on the dustpan and sighs heavily. She moves back to the counter, balancing the pan carefully in front of her, and sighs once more. "You need to be more careful, Jade."

"Oh, I'm sorry that everything I do ruins your life," Jade sneers, and the worst part is that she sort of really means it.

Sophia clinks the broken dishes in the sink, too hard. "It's not what you do, it's your attitude while you do it!"

She storms out of the kitchen. Beside her, covertly, Robbie triggers his inhaler.

Jade flings herself into the counter stool beside him. "I hate her."

Robbie gives out a sad little squeak. Jade reaches across him to yank her own bookbag towards her, and she reaches into it roughly to begin ripping textbooks and papers out. Robbie looks around at the counter and the sink consideringly. He intimates, "You don't want your snack?"

"No," growls Jade.

"Okay," says Robbie swiftly, cowed.

In muted fury, Jade digs further into her backpack, finally retrieving the pack of construction paper she's been searching more, pulling it out fitfully. She's got her scissors in the side pocket – actually, Shapiro's bought them for her, they're a little pack of those fun-shape ones, with designs etched into the blades – and she yanks them out too and sets about assaulting a sheet of yellow. She's never had fun-shape scissors before as a kid.

Tori, annoyingly, at lunch one day, had said how nice it was that Robbie had bought them for her, and waggled her eyebrows all over the place before Jade had hit her arm too hard. Like Vega knew anything! Shapiro was always buying things for other people, wasn't he? He always had candy for Cat, and fruit-gum for Beck, and he'd bought himself a harmonica so that he could play on command when Andre was feeling musical and needed backup ("No, don't play it like Bob Dylan," Andre had said last week. "Play it like Jimmy Reed!" Shapiro had looked blank. "I don't know who that is," he'd said. Andre looked disappointed).

"Oh," Robbie says now, watching her. "You're – we're doing that now?"

Jade throws a piece of construction paper at him to shut him up, and he acquiesces with a small squeak, taking the paper and holding it.

She cuts up her papers in a blind rage for a few moments, but it doesn't really do anything to make her feel better, as it usually does. By the time she's on her eighth sheet, she's still a bit angry, and Robbie's still being silent aside from giving out little squeaks now and then, which means something dorky is building up – she can, like, feel the electrons in the air changing, and it's annoying – but she refuses to look up.

She rips the last page of blue in half and stabs at it with the green-handled scissors. Robbie gives out a slight yelp that could be mistaken as the mating cry of an excitable Bichon Frise.

"What's up your butt?" she finally demands, pulling her gaze up to send him a glare.

Shapiro looks depressed. "I don't - I don't like to see you guys fighting," he says, folding his piece of construction paper into a square.

Jade just looks at him incredulously. "That's what we're_ always_ doing," she tells him. She's a little baffled. Like, he's here practically all the time, he should see that. Or, you know, freaking _hear_ it.

Shapiro shrugs, and he always looks oddly small when he shrugs, which is annoying to her right now. He folds the construction paper once more. "Not really," he mutters into the paper sheet.

Jade tosses a crumpled up paper at him from her own pile, and it bounces off of his shoulder. "What are you nattering on about?" she demands.

Shapiro sends her a briefly scared look, and then he sort of looks off to the left at the wall beside her. "Nattering," he repeats softly, which is what he always does when she uses a weird word that he's impressed by. There's a tinge of a smile on his lips when he says it, but it quickly disappears, and he stares hard at his papers some more. "Jade, I mean," he says, and falls silent for a while, folding his piece of blue paper until it's so tiny that he can't anymore. "Your stepmom_ likes_ you. God, I _wish_ my mother would even bother to yell at me. I mean - " he stops.

"Oh," says Jade, and falls silent.

Shapiro shrugs again, looking smaller and ever smaller. How does he do that? "I don't want you to get mad at me," he says quietly. "I mean, I know she isn't your real mother. And I wouldn't tell you what to do. Just." He shrugs a third time.

Jade looks at him, waiting, because there's always more with Shapiro, you just have to take the time to listen past his stammers and mutterings. He just keeps tapping at his little square of paper, though, looking fixedly at it, until she doubtfully says, "Okay?"

He flushes then, and stares intensely at the collection of construction papers that are strewn about the table as if they're his cherished Biology Lab notes or whatever. He flashes her a quick glance, and the bright dark depths of his eyes in that second startle her.

"I just like it here," he says finally, letting his gaze fall down once more. "So it sucks when you guys are fighting. I don't want you to be unhappy."

"Hmph," is all she can manage, and she cuts up her papers in silence for a few moments.

She does hate it when he is right. She knows that Sophia likes her - cares about her, whatever. Sophia has always cared about her, which is probably a large part of her dislike for the woman. Why _should_ she? "She doesn't have to get so shrill," she finally mutters grumpily.

Shapiro grins involuntarily, and it lights up his face suddenly, which is – well. Nice to see.

Or whatever.

"Yeah," he says. "You can barely understand what she's saying. And why was she waving her hands like that?"

Jade laughs.

* * *

After that, Shapiro had helped her clean up the scraps of paper – he'd kept one, yellow, saying that it looked like a baby butterfly, and he'd like to give it to his sister (he was so weird! "There's no such thing as a baby butterfly," Jade had sneered. "It's called a caterpillar." Robbie had put the paper in his binder. "It's a baby," he said firmly) – and then they'd actually gotten down to business, Jade massacring his English essay with her red pen before completely giving up and just rewriting the intro for him.

Dad had come home around five, mumbling out a greeting to her and Robbie. He'd moved around the kitchen slowly, casting a sad look at the cold and empty coffee pot before putting his briefcase down in its usual spot.

"I broke Sophia's new plates," Jade said as Dad hovered by the sink, looking down at the mess.

"They aren't very pretty," Dad said thoughtfully.

Jade growled for a reason unknown to her. "Well, they're broken now!"

Dad fished a piece out of the sink. "Are these blue flowers?" he asked. "This doesn't go with the color scheme of the kitchen at all, Jade."

Everyone was hopeless. "Well, maybe she wants to _redecorate,_" Jade had snarled.

Dad looked overwhelmed, possibly by her tone, or at the thought of redecorating. "I certainly hope not," he had said, and then meandered quickly upstairs. For some reason, Robbie had smiled.

"I guess I should get home," he said. "Thanks for rewriting my paper."

"Whatever," Jade said. She'd seen him out, given him a pack of rice cakes for the drive home, as he'd made her feel better earlier.

Now she stops in the doorway of the living room, casting a wary look out at the couch, where Sophia's sitting surrounded by her paperwork. What's the point of wearing glasses if you're going to have them perched so low on your face, she wonders, watching her stepmom. She leans heavily against the doorframe, waiting until Sophia glances up briefly at her in acknowledgment, then turns her gaze back down to her papers.

Jade grunts. Sophia's eyebrows raise slightly.

"I'm sorry about your stupid plates and I'm sorry the stupid dog ruined your plants," she grumbles rapidly. "I didn't know he'd do that."

Sophia looks up suddenly. "Oh," she says.

"_Oh,_" Jade deadpans back. Sophia just keeps looking, and Jade bounces her hip against the doorframe, uncomfortable. "I don't actually try to piss you off," she says. "That much. I mean, anymore. So I'm sorry about the dishes."

"It's okay," says Sophia.

She crosses her arms, because she doesn't know what else to do with them. "Do you want me to buy you a new plant or something?"

"No," says Sophia, and looks sort of happy for some reason. "It's all right."

"Okay," Jade says awkwardly. "Well … okay. Are you grounding me or anything?"

"No." Sophia still has that stupid look on her face.

Arms still crossed, Jade leans against the doorframe once more. "Okay," she says again. She starts to turn to leave, head upstairs, but then stops again. "Also, his name is Robbie."

Sophia looks up. "Excuse me?"

Jade starts to scowl, changes her mind. "_Rob_-bie. With an R. Not Bobby."

"Oh." Sophia piques her eyebrows guiltily. Then, horribly, she smirks. "Not Geppeto?"

She does scowl then. "Oh, shut up!"

Sophia looks happy. She turns back to her paperwork. "All right," she says companionably.

Jade grunts one last time, then she heads upstairs. Shapiro's texting her already – God, what a leech! – so she lays on her bed for a while, texting back, and, at further whining on his part, pulls out her laptop and connects so that they can video chat.

She understands that she is possibly making more trouble for herself, but it's more fun than_ not_ making more trouble for herself. She sits on her bed, wrapped up in her purple comforter, and consoles Shapiro some more about his screenplay kiss with Cat – well, sort of, if you can take _consoling_ to mean_ teasing mercilessly – _and they make up a little song inspired by Sikowitz, which Robbie rather brilliantly titles 'Paper Cuts Are Not Made of Trust.' He snorts into his harmonica and almost chokes on it. Jade laughs so loudly, pulling her blanket over her face, that Dad has to come in and check on her.

**AN: One of my favorite parts about TYSW, one of the few piece of writing that I can actually go back to without cringing, is in an early-ish chapter when Robbie is thinking about secrets – secrets that he has, secrets his friends have, and what they do with them when they don't want to bring them up. I thought about this when I wrote the little bit with Jade at the beginning:**

"**_He takes his hurt up and bottles it. It can go deep down, next to his dad, next to Cat, next to Mrs Savidge's lost teeth. … __He wonders if everyone has these bottles of hurt and sadness, hidden deep away. He wonders if everyone's clink so dangerously together and threaten to come to the surface. If it's just him."_**

**I miss writing Robbie! *pets him* Jade is more crass and while, unfortunately, I can't help but write her as thinking of her emotions all the time as well, she's just more apt to declare something as 'stupid' and be done with it with a string of swear words. **

**Do you guys want me to continue this? I mean, I will regardless, but I got a bit overwhelmed last night, thinking of how long this has already gotten, and how much more there will have to be! I do love this fandom, but we all know in canon there's absolutely no chance for Rade – a LOT would have to happen for them to be together, I think, so I really do feel like all this friendship crap and hesitance on Jade's part does need to happen.**

**And there, the longest author's note ever. Next chapter, I think, will be kissage. **


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter Twenty-Nine**

If asked, most people at Hollywood Arts – students and teachers alike – would tell you that Jade West had a tendency to be a bit off the charts. She's little psychopathic, some might say. She's a broiling beacon of overtapped creativity, she had once heard Sikowitz exuberantly telling a pair of talent scouts from West Hollywood, reason ninety-seven why she loved the man.

She doesn't particularly think of herself as any of those things, however. She's not really so off the charts. She certainly isn't _broiling_. Dad and Beck and Sophia and Lane can all say what they want, but she really doesn't just do as she wants _all_ the time, despite evidence to the contrary. She thinks that she can, at times, show rather_ amazing_ restraint, especially given the situations she usually finds herself in, what with her absolute weirdo friends and family. She does not even have a criminal record yet!

But sometimes she does do what she wants. Sometimes she does very bad things, because she wants to do them.

That's what she classifies the incident that occurs on Monday, February 14th, 2011, at approximately 3:42 PM (hey, the clock was right behind her, all right? It's not like she cared enough to date and time it) as. Yes, a very bad thing that she does, because she wants to do it.

She's had problems before, and this one has been coming for a while, if she really wants to tell the truth, but it – the incident – is the first step in what she'll later see is a very big chain of events, this – this thing that she does.

This thing where she sort of manhandles and kisses Robbie Shapiro in her kitchen.

The manhandling isn't very new. The kissing is.

So it's Monday, you know, and that sucks – it's already been covered, every single week, and very loudly, that Jade hates Mondays. So she's already a little on-edge, and what's worse is that they're filming today, filming with Danny, and he's already been pissing her off before they'd even gotten to her house. He'd been lingering about by Robbie's locker after school like some sort of weirdo-freak-spider, like,_ tapping_ at it, what was he even doing, and he jumped about three feet in the air when she'd come upon him, snarling.

"I thought we were meeting at the library!" he yelped out, pressing himself up against the locker. Jade had glowered hard and skeptically at him until he squeaked again and moved over a few feet so that he wasn't up against the locker that was Robbie's anymore. Her glower had relented, but not very much.

"I'm waiting for Shapiro," she informed him coldly. "What the hell are you doing to his stuff?"

"Nuh" – Danny cleared his throat and stood a bit taller, morphing from scared freshman to wastrel teenaged societal leech – "_nothing._ I'm, I'm waiting for him too! I need to, um, ask him something."

Jade crossed her arms and leaned forward dangerously. "Oh yeah? What, you can't ask him in the library?"

A flicker of fear – the kid was clearly up to something, and that pissed her off. He should be well aware that it was Monday, and Monday was generally bad enough already, what with having to get up early and come to this godforsaken place, being surrounded by talentless people and then the exhausting-ness of Cat and annoying-ness of Robbie; she didn't need to be, like, running about _solving mysteries o_n top of it. Danny had given her an indeterminable look, like he was trying to figure her out. He said, "What, _you_ can't wait for him in the library? You need to make sure he makes it there okay?"

"Oh, shut up!" Jade snapped.

Danny saw that he'd got a reaction out of her, and he looked happy. "You are, like, always looking for Shapiro," he tells her. "It's cute, yanno? He's like your little pet or something."

It was sort of true, actually – that exactly what Robbie was, her little pet – but for some reason she didn't like Danny saying it. He should always say nothing at all! She was still leaned over, and she'd grabbed at his collar before she even realizes it. "Look, you little worm," she growled threateningly. "I don't need your _observations._ Stay away from Shapiro's shit. I don't need you – "

Of course then Robbie had came up that moment to be horrified at her. "Jade!" he said. "It is two forty-five! I thought we had a deal!"

Oh, right. They had this thing – no causing physical harm to underclassmen until after three PM. Man, it was only Monday, and already she'd lost out on it. There was no way he'd be taking her to BF Wang's on Saturday at this rate. Jade loosened her grip immediately. "Sorry."

"What deal?" Danny had asked, fixing her collar and oozing delinquency.

"Don't worry about it," Robbie told him darkly, giving Jade a look that said _fifteen __minutes until you can assault him_. "Ready to go?"

"Yup," Jade said shortly, still glaring at Danny. She watched as the kid watched raptly as Shapiro swung in his locker combination and pulled open the door, taking out his math notebook.

"You always do what he says?" Danny asked speculatively. "Hey, maybe you're the pet."

Jade snarled viciously, grabbing for him again, but Robbie intercepted, and all she got was a handful of dork. "Jade!" he whined. "Detention! Come on, we only have like ten scenes left."

Danny gave out a long-suffering sigh, while still looking rather happy. "_Only_ ten?" he asked mournfully.

"I hate you," Jade had said.

Anyway, the Danny thing was unimportant, and she can ruminate on it later. Right now, she's got bigger problems – Robbie-sized problems. She guesses it is a problem, really.

They'd been upstairs with Danny for only about a half-hour before she'd gotten too violent again and Robbie had had to break them up. They'd left Danny upstairs to his own devices – they were filming a few quick scenes in Dad's office – with strict orders not to touch anything. Jade feared for Dad's DNA models.

Robbie, as he generally had been for the past few weeks, turned the subject to Sikowitz's play, and immediately began pacing her kitchen as Jade dug around in the fridge, squawking on about the horrors of kissing Cat. "What am I supposed to do?" he asks her for the four hundred and eleventh time. He let out a little yelp of despair, to emphasize his sorrow. "I can't kiss Cat! In front of everyone!"

She wonders if he feels he could kiss Cat _not_ in front of everyone. Does he still want to?

Robbie continues: "I can't do it! I've never kissed anyone!"

Well. That's new. Jade pauses in her rummaging to come and lean across the counter at him. "Really?" she says with interest. "You're never kissed anyone?"

Robbie Shapiro, kiss virgin!

Robbie makes a flustered noise, staring at her with apparent shock. "Oh, come on!" he says, like she should know better. "When would I _possibly_ have kissed someone and had you not know about it and – and ridicule me?"

Hmm, yeah. He does have a point. "I guess you're right."

Robbie moans and puts his head down on the counter, still complaining: his life is over, Andre will beat him to a pulp, what if he smells like nerd when he kisses Cat, did he mention that Andre will beat him to a pulp, and do you think Sikowitz will let him recite lines from his hospital bed?

Jade's been busying herself at the fridge again, pouring glasses of juice for everyone, and she takes the time to grin. "I hope so."

Robbie moans again, because she isn't being very helpful. "Oh God. I can't do this. Jade. I'll die. I'm dying, Jade."

Jade tries the juice – orange mango. It's not too bad; she'll have to tell Dad to keep it on the grocery list. You can't drink soda all the time, you know. Soda makes you fat. "It's not a big deal, Roberto. It's not a real kiss."

"That's not the _point!_" yelps Robbie, who really will never shut up about anything, will he? Jade looks at him in consideration, then she sets her glass down on the counter beside him and moves to stand closer. Robbie takes pause at her new proximity, glancing at her a little nervously. He licks his lips – pink – and swallows before continuing. "The – the point is, I can't kiss Cat! She can't take my kiss virginity! She's not – "

No, he really will never shut up, never. Never! There must be some way to stop him, right? She's – she's in control of herself, but she's not, because she knows she's going to do it before she does it, and she shouldn't do it, she should stop herself, but she doesn't want to. A case of the Mondays – anything to make Shapiro stop talking. She's close enough to him already, less than a foot away, so she angles herself and then she leans in and kisses him, right on his big stupid mouth.

If you were to really want the truth, she could tell you why she did it, and it's a simple thing, honestly. Why does anyone do something that they want to do?

She's been – curious, she guesses, if she wants to think about it, but she doesn't want to think about it, and she won't, not really, for a while. It's a fast thing – a quick thing, hardly anything at all – so she couldn't really give you a bunch of asinine details that no one wants anyway. It – the kiss – lasts about five seconds, maybe four. Probably only really two or three, but time does that strange thing that it does where it seems to stretch on and on.

You could get lost when time does that – it could have gone on longer.

He tastes sort of like a mint. That's the only detail she'll give, really. It's a little strange, because she just drank half a glass of juice, but it's not bad, you know. His mouth is there and so is hers and she catches his bottom lip a little, because she can.

Then she pulls away, because she shouldn't.

Robbie stares at her, blank and silent and utter flummoxed.

"There you go," she says, and turns away from him again, moving back towards the counter and her glass of juice.

Mount Shapiro trembles and explodes.

"_You!_" he yelps, and oh god, instead of speaking she should have just struck him unconscious. "You – why did you – you just – why did you _do_ that?"

The question of the century. _Because I wanted to._ She feels every part of her body bristle, right down to her toes, but she doesn't let it show. "Now you don't have to worry about Cat."

Robbie's mouth falls further open, and he lets out yet another squeak, possibly of indignation. He's yelping all over the place, voice getting ever squeakier, and the poor kitchen windows are threatening to shatter, and Sophia will really never forgive her for that. "Well you can't" – _intelligible squeak_ – "you can't just walk up and _kiss_ someone, Jade! I, I wasn't ready!"

She can't help but sort of snort at him – he will never stop complaining either, will he? She lets her snort turn into a snarl midway through. "Oh, would you have prepared and allowed me if I had?"

Yelp! "I – no!"

Blind rage, which is common when dealing with Robbie Shapiro. "Oh, so you don't want to kiss me!" she hollers out, and slams her fist down on the counter, dangerously close to the glass. "I'm so disgusting!"

"_Ack_!" he yells back. "No, of course I – _you!_" He waves his arms, sweater sleeves flapping, in her face. "You're crazy! I can't believe you _did _that!"

Jade laughs, because he's just so – well, he's so _Robbie_. She's gone from fury to amusement in under five seconds, which is how she generally deals with him. "Would you calm down? I solved your problem, didn't I? Quit freaking out."

Robbie looks doubtful, and a little overwhelmed. "I, I guess so," he says slowly, looking like he's thinking very hard, looking like he's got a particularly tough science equation that he needs to break down.

Jade shoots him a sweet smile. "Happy Valentine's Day," she says dryly, and he just blinks at her, like he hadn't even realized. She doesn't know how he couldn't have realized, what with the red paper hearts strung up all over school, and Cat and Andre and Beck and Alison kissing more than ever, and Cat eating Bibble out of a giant heart-shaped box, while Tori looks distressed over everything because no one loves her. Jade slides the second glass of juice she's poured closer to her, picks it up and hands it to him fitfully.

She wants to be done with it – now, please. The kissing-thing, that is, not the juice, which is pretty good. "Now let's stop talking about it."

Robbie blinks at the glass of orange-mango, recovering. He raises his eyes to her, and the side of his mouth lifts up in that sardonic little smirk she's come to know and be irritated by. "And do _what?_" he asks speculatively.

A little bark of laughter escapes before she can stop it. Sometimes she really does forget, even when she's making plans to kiss him, that Shapiro is, underneath everything, a _boy_. "God, you're disgusting," she says happily. "Come on, I don't want Daniel Tosh upstairs breaking my dad's molecular structure maps."

Robbie just makes a soft sound of agreement, and he doesn't heckle her anymore, simply going quiet and following her back up the stairs, holding his glass of juice (they don't bother to bring the one she's poured for Danny upstairs – maybe Jefferson will drink it).

Back up in the office, Danny's sitting in Dad's desk chair, feet up on the desk, holding Dad's most expensive paper weight in his lap, but oddly enough, Jade doesn't even feel like screaming at him anymore. She just wanders over behind the camera, turning it back on, listening to the soft whine of the machine and watching Robbie cross the room to yelp disapprovingly at the boy. She chews on her bottom lip absently. Sort of tastes like toothpaste – like Robbie.

As he comes to stand beside her to watch her film, the too-long sleeve of his sweater hitting against her arm, he bites his lip too. She wonders if it's for the same reason.

* * *

So there's that: that happened, and then it was over. Nothing really changes much – well, a lot does change, to be honest, but it doesn't affect either of them very much, not for a while.

Robbie doesn't start trying to mention_ it_ every two seconds as she'd feared, and he doesn't change towards her, or pull away, or anything shitty like that. He doesn't try and make her talk about it. They're the same as before, which is what she's wanted, because it's really just nothing, right?

She needs to – she probably shouldn't have done it, kissed him. She's not talking about it, no, but now she's, like,_ thinking_ about it. Thinking about doing it _again, _even!

She probably could, you know. He'd probably let her.

Would he let her, or would he want her to?

Well, it doesn't matter – either way, it doesn't – as she isn't going to again, kiss him. No. He's stopped complaining about Cat since then, and that's all she's wanted, right?

Everything's the same and everything's fine. Probably he doesn't even care about it, anyway. She'll never stop teasing him, but really, she's the one who's the weirdo freak, isn't she? Not able to stop from thinking about how she'd kissed Robbie Shapiro, and what he'd thought about it.

One day about a week later she notices something potentially awful.

It's fifth period, and she's a little late to lunch – stupid locker quitting out on her as always. She's hungry, so she goes and waits in the longer line for the lunch truck instead of just getting her salad like normal, which is quicker. She pauses at one of the smaller tables, setting down her turkey hoagie (way too big – Cat will probably eat half of it, she hopes) and pulling her messenger bag off to readjust it. She looks over to the side of the courtyard where their merry band of misfits usually meets, wanting to see who's there already, so she can strut or sulk over accordingly.

Cat's sitting in her usual spot at the right corner, a space between her and Robbie saved for her, though Cat's got her stupid pink binders and gel pens all spread over Jade's part of the table. Andre's next to her on the opposite side, of course, sleeping as he has been lately. Across from them, Beck and Alison are cuddled up (barf), looking boring and happy and sharing fruit snacks. Tori's just a few feet away, making to sit down with her disgusting tray of _three pizza slices_.

Jade watches the thunderous black cloud of Shapiro's head bob about. He's scanning the cafeteria – he says something, off to the side, to Cat, but he doesn't take pause to bring his eyes to her face – and she doesn't get it at first, but a second later she realizes that he's, you know. He's looking for _her_.

It's weird and stupid, but she feels something in her stomach anyway – a strange sort of pull. She chalks it up to indigestion, right, because she hasn't eaten yet today. Yes, that must be it. It's weird and stupid, yeah, but it's – nice to be thought of, you know? Even Cat isn't searching for her. And why she should she? It's just lunch, and she's got Andre.

Jade pushes up off the small table and continues heading over. Robbie catches her eye a moment later, when she's nearly reached their spot, and he gives her a rather brilliant smile, one so bright that it makes Beck frown in confusion and follow his gaze. "Oh," he says. "Hi Jade."

Jade growls a little at him. Beck smiles back, nonplussed.

"Hi Jade," Robbie says too, and starts moving Cat's papers for her.

"Hey," she says back, and Robbie smiles again, and – oh god, wait, there's something disturbing in that smile, something she remembers, what the hell is he – ?

She sits down with a little thump, shaking the table, and Andre mutters a little, rousing to pick his head up. "Hey Jade," he says sleepily over to her, and puts his head on Cat's arm.

Cat giggles sympathetically. "Andre's grandmother's bird died so he's been hiding under her bed and talking to her til they can get a replacement," she informs Jade.

"Oh," says Jade, raising an eyebrow. "Well. That's weird."

"Yeah, it's family," says Cat, and she smiles down at Andre and pets his braids, and that's sort of cute, so Jade looks away.

"I wouldn't hide under my dad's bed and talk to him," Jade says. Gross.

Cat considers. "I might."

"Ew! _My_ dad?"

"Maybe." Cat looks contemplative, and also begins to unwrap Jade's turkey sandwich. "He's real nice to me."

Jade thinks about it. "Hey, if you were my new stepmom, would you give me a raise in my allowance?"

Cat beams. "I'd give you all the allowances in the world!"

Jade twirls a lock of her hair absently, elbow hitting into Robbie, who's too close as usual. "You could probably keep some of her clothes. She's got a silk dress. If you wore a wig, Dad might not notice."

Cat looks more contemplative – girl likes expensive things, and also wigs.

Tori's frowning. "Why are we talking about this?"

"_We_ aren't talking about this," Jade says meanly, knocking Robbie's elbow again so that she can lean properly to scowl at the girl. She adds, "I'd hide under _your_ dad's bed."

Tori looks offended. "You – I wouldn't let you!"

"Oh, you couldn't stop me!"

Tori looks more offended, but doesn't deem the argument important enough to press, and she just frowns at Jade once more before turning to say something probably stupid to Beck and Alison. Jade snatches up her half of the hoagie from Cat – she's not really sure when the hoagie become a shared thing, but it's just Cat, so whatever – taking a bite and holding it with one hand while digging through her messenger bag with the other.

Robbie continues looking at her with that weird affected stare. "Do you need change for a soda?" he asks her. "I have it."

"Cool, I want pineapple," Jade mutters around her turkey. God, why does he need to be looking at her right now? She sort of has this thing about eating in public – people don't look pretty when they eat, but the sad fact is that she likes to eat. She's never going to be a size double zero like Cat, or even probably a two like Tori. Well, at least she's got boobs, right?

Robbie starts digging through his pockets. "If I pay for my salad with three dollars then I get forty cents back and if I buy the small french fries then I get twenty-five cents and that's enough for a soda for you," he tells her happily, apparently under the impression that she cares for some reason.

"Right," she says smartly. "So go get it."

He does so, coming back to the table and handing it to her glowingly. "Hey," she says. "Thanks."

Beck and Cat and Tori stare at her because she's said thanks, and Jade scowls around at them all and takes another bite of her sandwich. For the love of Vincent Price! These people think the world is going to end if she's not nasty all the time? She turns to Robbie, scowl still in place, though he seems undeterred by it, which is nice. "I got a new movie for us to watch," she informs him. It's not really new, but she wants to watch it. "How do you feel about Haley Joel Osment?"

Robbie thinks about it. "I guess I'm impartial," he says. That will suffice. He's still looking at her in that weird way, and she –

_Oh my god._

Jade chokes on her turkey sandwich.

Robbie yelps. "Are you okay?" he squeaks out, doing his annoying dork-boy-hovering-thing and almost-patting her shoulder before changing his mind, as she isn't really turning blue or anything (sad fact: no one else at their lunch table really bothers to look up. There is always something happening to someone at the table – whether it be someone doing spit-takes due to something insane Trina or Cat's said, or Beck leaning too far back in his chair and swallowing his gum, or Tori getting pelted with various objects by the slingshot kids, or Robbie choking on nothing because if he doesn't make a fool out of himself at least once a day his hardware begins to wear down – so they don't bother to show concern anymore unless it goes on longer than ten seconds).

"Yeah," she mumbles, clearing her throat. She grabs at her soda to pop the tab open. Also: "Shut up."

"Yes," Robbie mutters in obedience and immediately goes silent, bringing his eyes back down to the table top, which – thank God.

She's just realized why the way he'd been looking at her had been so unsettling. It's a look she's seen before. It's a horrible, horrible look.

It's – it's the way he had used to look at _Cat!_ It was the sunshine and rainbow lollipops look! He was shooting_ moonbeams_ at her!

God help her. God help her. She'd done this to herself, hadn't she?

Lunch passes. Jade tries to figure out what to do now.

**AN: Y'all are swell. :)**


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter Thirty**

One day after school, Jade finds herself in the Black Box Theatre, off in the back helping Beck's girlfriend spread out jars of paint and scenery rolls.

She's practically here all the time as it is, wasting away and playing Angry Birds on her phone as she waits for Cat and Robbie to finish rehearsing. She might as well join stage crew, so she can oversee the project and make sure the rest of these losers don't ruin it.

It would be nice, she thinks, if Shapiro could do something – be a part of something – that wasn't terrible for once. Something that she and the rest of their friends won't see fit to tease him about. Something good. That'd be nice for him, right? That'd be good?

Not that she really cares what is good for Robbie or not, you know. She's just pretty much stuck here anyway, so she should make the best of it.

'Making the best of it,' in her head, hadn't really involved being paired off with Beck's new girl to paint scenery, but it's where Sikowitz had glowingly placed her, so it's – you know, whatever. She's not going to make a scene. She doesn't _need_ to make a scene.

She can be nice. She's the new and improved Jade, remember? It's already four minutes in, and she hasn't even spilled any paint on the girl yet!

Alison makes a happy sound down to the three paint brushes she's holding – she's sort of an odd duck, too, isn't she? Jade thinks absently. "It's really cool that you decided to help with the scenery," she says.

"Yeah, I guess so," Jade says, who's feeling sort of uncomfortable and dismayed, because _oh, interaction_.

She doesn't bother to point out that it hadn't been so much her _deciding_ as it had been her telling Sikowitz she'd help out and then him exuberantly frog-marching her over to the set displays. Cat was usually the one who designs most of the sets for these things – since Sikowitz puts his plays on so often, they do recycle a lot of the sets, but there's always something new to do or something that needs to be repainted. She guesses that Cat's sort of whirlwind creativity / energy / craziness works pretty well for things like this, but as the girl's playing lead for once, she doesn't really have the time to paint four whole new backdrops.

"Beck says that Robbie is sort of not-so-thrilled to be playing lead," Alison continues, still looking pretty happy to be in the company of Jade – you know, as everyone should, but it's sort of weird in this case, because it's Beck's new girl.

"I guess so," Jade says again, awkward. What the hell is she supposed to say to that? She looks down at the jar of paint she's holding – Fantastic Beige. Is any beige really so fantastic? Probably Sophia thinks so. "He's sort of a backstage dude, I guess."

"Well, it's really cool," Alison says again. She unwraps the paint brushes, setting them studiously down beside her. She lets out a happy little squeak, then asks, "Have you guys been friends for a long time?"

Oh _God_, she's actively _making conversation_ now! And is that really the general consensus, that she and Shapiro are _friends_? Everyone thinks this? She really can't have anything to herself, can she? She feels sort of wildly and irrationally trapped, guilty for absolutely no reason, like Alison's going to be able to look at her and know that just over a week ago, she'd been kissing Robbie in her kitchen.

"Um," says Jade in eloquent response. "Not really. He just sort of started hanging out with me after Beck dumped me, I guess."

Alison blinks. "You – Beck – oh," she says falteringly, and then shoots Jade a rather uncomfortable smile before abruptly dropping her gaze.

"It's whatever," Jade says, feeling rather uncomfortable, too, because she's brought up the fact that she used to date Beck and – well, now she doesn't, and now Alison does.

"Right," says Alison, and keeps looking uncomfortable, so Jade bites out, because she can't help herself: "_What?_"

"Nothing!" Alison squeaks – well, everything she says is sort of a squeak; poor girl must have an unfortunately small voice box, but this squeak is particularly … you know, squeaky. Jade keeps staring, so Alison mutters, still glancing down at her paint brushes, "It's just, um, you know, he sort of … you know, told me something different."

Jade feels her jaw set. "_Oh_?" she says tightly. "What exactly did he tell you?"

"Nothing!" Alison squeaks again, but when Jade keeps looking, she mutters out: "Just, um … he said that … you know, that you … sort of … um, walked – walked out on him."

_Walked out on him?! _WALKED _OUT_ ON HIM? _WALKED_ OUT ON_ HIM?_

She lets herself have a moment of rage for Beck's megalomania, before it strikes her, rather suddenly, rather shockingly, that she doesn't actually care.

"Yeah," she says flatly, musing. "Well, I guess it was something like that."

Alison still looks sort of unsure about everything. Jade mumbles, "He's so full of himself."

Alison laughs unexpectedly. "Yeah," she says agreeably. "He so is."

The corner of Jade's mouth goes up without her meaning to, but she doesn't take her eyes off of the scenery roll, dipping her paintbrush in the Fantastic Beige and beginning to cover the heavy material. Nervously, Alison says, "I mean – I'm really sorry, I don't want you to – um, hurt me, we really don't have to talk about Beck – "

"It's cool," Jade cuts her off. "I mean, it's whatever. I'm cool with it."

"Okay," Alison stammers out, and when Jade looks up at her, she still seems very nervous, clutching her paint brushes tightly, as if they could protect her should Jade choose to strike. It's really sort of ridiculous.

"I don't know what he's told you about me," Jade says gruffly. "I mean, I'm really not_ that_ bad."

"Oh!" Alison squeaks. "Oh, no! I mean – no, he'd – he's never said anything bad about you!"

"Oh," Jade says dumbly.

Probably they never even talk about her. Beck's favorite thing had never really been _talking_, had it, oh god, he's totally been _not-talking_ with Alison –

"Um," Alison says now. "Um. We don't – well, he did tell me this really long story the other week – he gets really worked up – something about your little brother, how he put glue in his shampoo – "

Jade snorts before she can stop herself.

"That really happened?" Alison asks, looking awed.

"My brother's sort of a jerk," Jade says happily.

Alison grins. "I don't know how you worked through that one," she says. "Last week, Beck, he was supposed to pick me up for school, and we were, like, twelve minutes late, because he said he got this new conditioner and it had to set for twenty minutes? I was _so_ mad, I was waiting out in the rain – I was like, _you're a boy!_"

Jade laughs. Also, apparently Alison isn't really sleeping over at Beck's RV, not yet, not if he's still picking her up for school. "Oh man, I could tell you some stories," she says. It wouldn't hurt, would it, to talk to Alison without threats? Especially if it's gossiping about how badly Beck can suck. "This one time, over spring break, we went to his aunt's house, and her shower only had hard water, I thought he was going to _cry_ … "

On stage, Robbie and Cat fumble, laugh, lean in awkwardly (Robbie almost falls over), shake hands instead of kissing. Alison's own laughter pierces through the air, and Cat and Robbie turn to send their gazes out to them, watching the girls paint and snicker. When Jade looks up, too, Robbie shoots her a happy little grin that makes her feel pretty good, for some reason.

* * *

A little bit of time passes, and things are all right. She'd been worried that they wouldn't be all right, after noting the way that Shapiro had looked at her that one day out in the courtyard – the way that he's _been_ looking at her.

Boys are so easy. They think they're so suave, lady-killers, but really, they're _so_ easy. Well, okay, Robbie probably doesn't think he's suave, definitely not a lady-killer, unless it's killing them with nerd, but he probably thinks he's being, like, _discreet_ or something.

It's okay if he wants to shoot moonbeams at her. It's sort of fun, actually.

The thing is, he doesn't – well, the looks he's been giving her, she's slowly realizing, aren't_ exactly_ the same as the looks he'd used to give to Cat. She's not sure how, but they are different, in some way. She can't really tell which way. It's not – he doesn't _like_ her, does he?

He couldn't, and not in the same way he liked Cat – likes, is liking, whatever.

What's to like? Jade isn't nice, she doesn't do anything for him. She isn't sweet and cute and good like Cat is. She's not _bubbly._ She never will be. So she can't really understand why – well, why he'd ever be looking at her that way.

It's just a stupid thing, she reasons in her head at lunch, as she makes a display of herself, putting on her lip gloss, and Shapiro stares at her mouth. He's a boy, and they're stupid, and he's still staring, and – oh, oh my god, he _wants_ her.

Okay. That's – well, that's _so weird,_ but that's all right, isn't it? After all, this_ is_ her fault anyway – she is the one who'd kissed him, you know; she's probably kick-started his testosterone for the first time ever. Hell, maybe he'll even grow some leg hair now.

And it's not like she hasn't … oh hell, she really doesn't want to admit this part to herself, but it's not like she hasn't had _thoughts_ about him. Nothing gross, nothing even PG-13, okay, because, after all, this is _still_ Robbie Shapiro, the puppet master, the AV geek, and she does have a little bit of dignity left.

He's really not so bad-looking, she reasons. And his hair is really soft. He's actually – he can be – some people might say – he's sort of, you know, he can be ... sort of ... cute. He's got, like, cute features, right? He's got a cute smile, when he does it, when it's a real smile.

She's not so crazy in thinking this. For the past few weeks, Trina's been going crazy, trying to get Cat kicked out of the play so she can take her part and kiss Robbie.

Jade had sort of been part of an argument about it the other day in Sikowitz's classroom after the period had ended. Tori'd been yelling at her sister because she'd found some sort of contraption in Trina's room that she'd rigged up to try and sabotage Cat. Something about a skateboard and a fishing line filled with Bibble. Christ, does she want to _kill_ Cat?

"I'm just saying!" Trina is squawking out as Tori batters her with her backpack (go Vega! Jade privately thinks. Tori is annoying as all hell, but God, Trina's an entirely different story). "I don't really think Cat is _woman_ enough to play a part opposite Robbie!"

"If by 'woman enough,' you mean 'pathetic and crazy enough,' then yeah, you're probably right," Jade drawls out, unable to help cutting in, because Trina needs to _watch her mouth_ about Cat.

Tori looks a little amused for a moment before she hits at Trina again. "Yeah, Trina, geez!" she says. "What's your deal with Robbie? You had your chance to manhandle him last year, remember?"

"Well, he was _really short _then!" Trina whines. "And it was out of character for our characters to kiss! Anyway, you know, that was before he got all those skinny jeans."

Jade and Tori make twin barfing noises.

"Hey!" squeals Trina. She pauses in consideration. "You know, you guys are practically upperclassmen now – "

"We _are_ upperclassmen," Tori says witheringly.

Trina ignores her – "and, you know, geek chic is really in now. Sorry ladies, but Robbie's got the _Look._"

"The ... Look," Tori repeats blankly.

"Yeah, you know – that hipster nerd look! Let me tell you, he's going to become _pre-tty_ popular soon. Girls will be _swarming_. I read about it in _People_."

"Kill me," Jade intones.

Tori sends her sister a bewildered look, apparently deciding she's been beaten enough (Jade disagrees), and slides her backpack onto her shoulder. "So … you want to star in Sikowitz's play and kiss Robbie because he's … going to be … um, popular?"

"God, Tori, you're slow," scoffs Trina. "Yes, and once I _kiss him_, he'll be left wanting more, and I'll have him wrapped around my little finger!"

Tori and Jade exchange a glance – Jade would rather never share glances with Tori, but really, she's the only other one in the room – and Tori says slowly, "Okay, you want … you think Robbie's going to be your new popularity vehicle?"

"Dear sister," Trina says gently, and reaches over to pat Tori atop the head, "you are so simple. Do you need to repeat everything I've said?"

Tori bats Trina's hand away, irritated. "Shut up, crazy lady! You don't even _like_ Robbie! God, _Jade_ probably likes Robbie more than you do!"

"Doubtful," Jade puts in immediately.

"Well," Trina looks oddly hesitant, "I mean … he does have nice calves."

Tori and Jade crack up. Trina looks pissed, opening her mouth to crow on, but Jade had been done with both of them at that point, and shouldered her messenger bag to slip from the room.

Nice _calves?_ Jade thinks now, remembering. When does Shapiro ever even wear shorts?

Anyway – Trina's completely insane, but maybe she does sort of have some sort of point. Robbie's really not as bad as he had been. He_ has _gotten taller. The skinny jeans are, you know, pretty bad, but at least she's not the only one who thinks he might be sort of –

no, she can't say it –

sort of –

oh god why –

sort of _attractive_.

But that's all it is! There's nothing else, all right? She doesn't have a _crush_ on him, or anything stupid like that. He still annoys her nearly all of the time. He's still got that stupid puppet, he can't process dairy, he flosses his teeth after fifth period, two days ago he'd _cried_ when they'd watched 'Secondhand Lions' –

Well, it's just not anything at all. She doesn't think she's even _capable_ of liking anyone again, it had been hard enough to open herself up to Beck, she's not going to do any of that again, for what, so it can just crash and burn and be plastered all over The Slap. Yeah right!

It's just something stupid, something fun, and she can't let – well, the thing is, Shapiro really is her friend now, she has to admit that. He's a pretty good friend, and it's not like she can just suddenly stop talking to him because she thinks about his mouth or his arms sometimes and he's giving her looks like she's sitting on a rainbow while she's thinking these things.

The rainbow looks are fun. The flustered looks are fun. It's just become a part of them – a part of their strange friendship – where Shapiro looks moonily at her as she comes up to her locker, and she laughs at him and tells him to shut his mouth, or says something flirty to him, and he gets overwhelmed and starts turning pink.

The most important part is that he hasn't, you know, tried anything, and that's the way she'd like to keep it. There's no way he _likes_ her or anything, he's just – well, he's a boy, and Jade knows how they are. He just _wants_ her, is all.

Jade knows when boys want her.

She sort of thrives on it, to be honest. She's not an asshole about it like Beck is with girls, she doesn't flirt with everyone and flaunt it, but she – you know, yeah, she's not super tiny and adorable like Cat, or tall and willowy and cheek-bone-y like Vega, but she knows she's pretty … well, pretty. Pretty pretty. She can be pretty, and she's got boobs, and what else do you need? She's been guilty of smirking at boys, at leaning too close, only to turn the smirk into a snarl and the lean into a punch – _you can't have me_.

She doesn't want to have to snarl at or punch Shapiro (well, she already does those things, but not like that, you know).

It's just fun, is all. She doesn't even know if Robbie is aware of what's happening – this little shift that's taking place in their relationship – and she's fine with that. She can flirt with him, hit at him and then leave her hand on his arm for two extra seconds to see the sort of reaction it gets, and she can look, and he can look, and that's all it is. She's not going to_ try _anything – she doesn't want to, she won't, she can't – and he won't, either. He better not.

She doesn't think it's even crossed his mind – trying something, that is. God, it's Robbie Shapiro, after all, he probably doesn't even know what - what_ something_ is.

So the weeks go on, and they continue on with this – this strange little dance they're doing, and it's totally meaningless, stupid, right, but even so, Jade knows she needs to be careful. She always has to be careful, because – Christ, she doesn't even make any sense to herself!

There are steps that she has to take, in order to close herself off to people. Jade has – hell, she's even told Shapiro this – she's known a lot of people. She understands that almost always, people are going to disappoint her. It's something that she's learned. It's better to stay cold, to stay away.

Sometimes people get in anyway – they take stabs at you, they chip away at you. They bother and annoy you to cracking, like Dad has done, like Cat has done, like Beck had, like Shapiro's starting to do.

She's always on a slippery slope, wobbling, and she needs to be careful. Sometimes people will get to know you, and – and they decide they don't like you. Or they're supposed to stay with you, they're supposed to care about you, and they – they – well, they don't. They go away. They leave you. Like Beck.

Like Mom.

So she needs to be careful – and this isn't the new thing, the new _wanting_ thing, this is just the all-the-time thing, and she can't be letting Robbie in too much, depending on him. She knows she's been messing up for a while – giving him too many details, telling him about Mom, letting herself spend time with him – for fuck's sake, she'd even slept in his bed!

Every time she's hanging out with Robbie, though, and she feels herself slipping – feels herself being _herself,_ hears herself laughing, hears herself saying something nice – she tries to reason with herself.

It is _just_ Robbie. How long has she known him? Three years. And how long has she been awful to him? Well – three years, almost.

He is, he can be – he can be her friend. He can be her friend, and she can keep him in line. It's all right, isn't it? Maybe he's – maybe he's really actually good, like Cat had turned out to be, and Cat hasn't gone anywhere yet, has she?

No. Well, _mostly_ no. Jade knows that she's – you know, completely insane; she can admit that she's a little jealous of Cat's new-found relationship with Andre. It's just that Cat is _her_ friend, you know? She's known Cat first, she's supposed to be number one, darn it, and it's so stupid, because she'd done the exact same thing to Cat when she'd begun dating Beck. But the sting of rejection whenever she calls Cat and she's out with Andre, or when she's with Cat and Cat's giggling and she knows she's texting Andre … well, it's a very strong and unpleasant sting. Then she has to fight with Vega over time _too_? Can't she ever be someone's number one?

So, yeah, Cat's still there, but Andre's there too, and more often than not she finds herself just spending time with Robbie, and she lets herself bend her rules a little bit. She knows he _wants_ her, in whatever weird Shapiro way that works, so she reasons that, now, if she wants to talk, she can text him first. She can invite herself over – he's told her himself, she's always welcome! She can seek him out at school, she can be the one to make a move and talk to him.

As long as there aren't any other moves she's making, you know. As long as there's that, everything's fine.

* * *

Now it's March, and they're up in her room, playing with Quentin and the kids.

The kids – Jesus, Quentin, give her a heart attack, why don't you?

For a couple days a week or so prior, Jade had been feeling pretty sulky because of how the guinea pig was acting. Eating too much, not really budging from his igloo.

"He's getting sort of fat, don't you think?" Shapiro had asked one day, inspiring a rather hard smack from Jade.

He _had_ been getting sort of fat. Jade had chalked it up to Jeff sneaking in her room constantly to feed him lettuce – she'd done a lot of reading, and guinea pigs weren't supposed to eat a lot of lettuce – so he probably had some water weight or something. After two straight days where Quentin hadn't come out of his igloo, she'd sort of started to freak out. She'd never had a pet before, and he was – well, Christ, what if he was sick or something? She couldn't kill her first pet! Oh God, imagine what Sophia would say!

Could guinea pigs get kidney stones or something? Jesus, what if he exploded?! She couldn't clean that up herself – she'd probably actually cry – and, God, Shapiro would faint if he saw it, he seemed to really like Quentin –

She'd petted sadly at the pig through the igloo opening and decided to make Shapiro take them to the vet tomorrow if he wasn't coming out by the end of the weekend.

(Was that too much? Was it too bad, too codependent, of her to expect Robbie to take her to the vet's? He _had_ offered to clean the pig's cage last week. And Cat was always busy - she didn't really trust her around Quentin anyway; she squeezed too hard. Robbie liked animals most anyway, and for _Christ's sakes Jade shut up stop thinking –_ )

They had had to take Quentin to the vet anyway, but not because he'd exploded or anything. Late that next morning, Saturday, as she'd been tugging her sweater over her head, getting dressed, she'd seen Quentin dart out of his igloo and felt happy. "Hey buddy," she said happily, moving closer to the cage.

Quentin darted again – whoa, he'd lost a lot of weight, he looked really small –

Something else that was white-and-tan darted over the igloo, and Jade shrieked, jumping back a little – just shut up, okay? How the hell was she supposed to know what it was?

After taking a moment to compose herself, Jade had gone back over to inspect the cage and she'd discovered a few things.

Quentin was not a boy.

Quentin had been pregnant.

Quentin had had three babies!

A quick Bing search had told her that guinea pigs could reproduce at only a month old, which was – _ew_, and also – "Jesus Christ, Subject Q," Jade growled, holding poor Quentin up to her face, "the hell were you getting up to at the Environmental Sciences department?"

Well, now there were four guinea pigs in her room, and they were probably only a day or two old, but god, who knows, they really could start having sex at any moment – it would be a pig orgy; their squeaks were already annoying enough already without throwing _passion_ into it, and she really couldn't deal with that at all, no.

So she'd called Robbie, who'd squeaked and screamed and said the word_ sex_ like she'd wanted him to, and he'd left Beck's house early to bring her an extra tank and to take Quentin to the vet.

"Want to make sure there aren't any boys," Doctor Morales said once they were in the animal hospital, poking at one of the baby pigs' – _well_ – special area. "Otherwise you'll have more than you know what to do with. Also, the younger they are, the higher the death rate."

Shapiro had looked vaguely ill.

"Well, is Quentin okay?" Jade demanded.

"_Quentin?_" said the vet.

Jade growled and pressed on: "I didn't even know he was pregnant, I don't even know how old he is – "

"She is," cut in Robbie.

"- _she_ is," continued Jade, scowling. "Is he, like, going to die? Is his – her – junk, like, all right and stuff?"

Morales looked highly amused at her, which Jade resented. "I think Quentin will be just fine," he said. "She looks to be a little under a year old. Thankfully her litter isn't too big – that is, there could have been more, perhaps she ingested some – "

Shapiro looked more ill –

" – but all in all, I'd say the two of you have a nice little family here."

Now Shapiro looked lovestruck, which was gross.

"The three little ones are female, so you should be all right," Morales continued. God! Girls! Jade hates girls! "Keep them with her for a few more weeks, then you should be able to separate them."

Taking Quentin and the kids back to the car, Robbie looked moony. "We have a family, Jade," he said happily. "We're parents!"

"Oh, shut up!" Jade snapped. She looked darkly down at the cage on her lap, all four guinea pigs squished into that stupid igloo. "Three bitches," she said dismally.

"I can't wait for them to get bigger," Robbie continued dreamily. "I never thought I'd have kids. Hey, what should we name them? Oh! Jade! I'm going to make a scrapbook!"

Life sucked.

Anyway, now, where was she – they're up in her room, and Jade wants to watch Pet Semetary again, but Shapiro's insisting on hurting her and acting like an incredible dork, reaching into Quentin's cage and cooing over the first irritating fluff-ball he scoops up.

"Who's just the cutest little sugar-noodle?" he asks the pig in a simpering tone (the pig gives out a tiny squeak). "Yes! You are!"

Jade retches quietly. "And all across LA, women collapse at the sound of Robbie Shapiro's baby voice."

Robbie taps at the guinea pig's head gently with a finger. "Do you hear that, squeaker?" he asks it. "Mommy thinks Daddy is just_ so_ handsome that even his voice can make the ladies faint."

Jade chokes. _Mommy?_

Also, _handsome?_

Robbie glances at her quickly, then grins an unabashed and sneaky grin. "Daddy can still strike Mommy speechless, huh?"

Jade snorts. "You absolute freak of nature," she says. "Give him to me!" She snatches the pig from his hand.

"It's a girl, Jade - " Robbie starts, but Jade shuts him up with a jab to the chest.

She holds the pig gently in cupped hands, ignoring the sound of Robbie's indignant huff. "Daddy always has these delusional displays of grandeur, sweetie," she tells the pig. "Sometimes he has to be sedated and hospitalized! That's why Mommy had to seek comfort and cheat on him with the pool boy."

Robbie squeaks in outrage. "You – _excuse_ me?"

"And little does he know Mommy's already put in for divorce papers, and because she put him through ventriloquism school, he's going to have to sign over the Malibu condo to her."

"Jade – ! The Malibu condo – ! "

Jade smirks meanly. "Love's a bitch," she says.

Robbie scowls. "You shouldn't curse in front of the children," is all he says.

Jade sends him a sweet smile, dumping the guinea pig into his lap. "Child support's due at the first of the month," she tells him, and crosses the room to put her movie in.

She hasn't even mentioned that he's wearing that sweater that she likes, has she? That's because it doesn't matter. Yes, so Robbie's wearing that stupid striped sweater, and apparently now they have guinea pig children together, and everything's really fine.

Really. Everything's fine.


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter Thirty-One**

Shapiro is at his locker after school, inspecting a myriad of his notebooks which are threatening to spill out onto the ground. Jade comes up beside him, watching as he selects one from the bottom of the pile, giving it a brief and doubtful tug. Shapiro acknowledges her with a little half smile, still mostly consumed with extracting his homework. He edges the notebook out a little more. She notes suddenly, and with a bit of surprise, that he's singing a Nirvana tune under his breath.

Jade makes her knees buckle and throws herself against the locker beside him. "Whoa," she says, glancing around dazedly.

Shapiro looks alarmed. "Are you _okay?_" he cries, turning, and three of the notebooks clatter down onto his head. "What happened?"

"Didn't you just feel that, like, that tremor on the ground?" Jade asks, managing to keep her face completely blank. She looks at him with wide eyes, pausing for a moment before she drawls out, "Oh, must have been Kurt Cobain rolling around in his grave."

Shapiro just stares at her with his mouth open, then laughs once and shakes his head, leaning to pick up his fallen books. "You're so rude to me," he mutters, trying not to smile. "And anyway, you of all people would know that he is _cremated,_ Jade."

She grins.

"Do you - " says Shapiro, and then stops abruptly, mouth going slack, staring at something over her shoulder.

Jade turns to look at Cat and Andre across the hall, being disgusting. Cat rubs her nose against Andre's, who laughs and leans in to kiss her. They look happy and oblivious.

Robbie gazes wretchedly at the ground.

Oh. He's still on that.

Jade sticks her finger down her throat and pretends to puke. "Gag me with napalm," she says loudly, then hits Shapiro on the back, too hard, as a distraction. "Come on, Roberto, get it in gear."

Shapiro chuckles weakly, briefly broken from his spell of misery. He slides his last textbook into his backpack and shoulders it. "All right," he says, and follows her out to his car. Jade makes sure she takes the long way, leading them away from Cat and Andre.

Out in the parking lot, Robbie leans heavily against the door of his Civic for a moment before opening it and reaching in to unlock the passenger side door. Jade slides compliantly into her seat, leaning around and watching as the boy sighs heavily and moves to toss his backpack haphazardly onto the backseat. He slumps into the driver's side, letting the keys dangle from the ignition as he half-heartedly checks his mirrors.

Jade raises an eyebrow.

Robbie pushes his glasses up his nose with a finger, then reaches out to adjust the rearview mirror. His hand gets snagged on the strands of blue-and-green glitter beads that Cat's put up there at some point, and he struggles with them for a minute before emitting a flustered little growl, finally yanking them completely off and chucking them down onto the dashboard. He turns the engine on and snaps the console into reverse abruptly.

Jade's eyebrow raises higher. "You all right, Samberg?"

Robbie blinks at her, glancing over swiftly as he edges back out of his parking space and turns the steering wheel. His eyes behind the frames of his glasses look impossibly big and deer-like, a little transfixing.

Something's really wrong with her. She understands that now. She accepts it.

"Yeah," he says, blinking some more. "I'm fine. Thanks."

"Okay," she says doubtfully. He's been quiet all day, absent-minded, not really there. He'd barely been speaking earlier at lunch. She and Cat had tried to engage him in conversation a few times, to little avail, so Jade had spent the rest of the period teasing Tori about the spring dance that the girl (if you could call her that, really) was daydreaming about putting on.

Jade furrows up her brow, critiquing him. His shirt's a little wrinkled, which isn't uncommon, because she knows every other week Girl Shapiro does the wash, but he just looks – well, tired, she guesses. They'd been filming at her house until nearly ten, she remembers, and it had probably taken him a while to get home. There are dark circles under his eyes, greyish bruise-hollows that stand out shockingly against the pale splash of his cheekbones.

She won't poke at him any more. Beck hadn't liked that – her fussing over him. She can be a little … well, _needy_ isn't the word, is it? but in the same vein – overbearing. Yes. She can be overbearing.

Everyone's allowed to be tired sometimes, right? It's just that she's never seen Shapiro not disgustingly chipper, or at least – not _pretending_ to be chipper, aside from right after that whole Cat/Andre fiasco.

Her no-poke resolution lasts for another outstanding five seconds.

"Are you upset about Cat or something?" she demands, because – shit, she just can't help herself, can she? "I thought you were, like, okay with her and Andre."

Robbie frowns, sending another quick glance her way – he really doesn't like to take his eyes off the road, even when they're just idling in the stupid school parking lot. "I'm not upset about Cat," he says, sounding confused.

Oh, so she guesses he thinks they're just going to pretend like he wasn't just wilting like an over-watered cactus there in the hallway. "Right," she says, tone exaggeratedly unconvinced.

"No," he argues, "don't be all – _right_ – at me! I'm not, I mean, I'm a big boy, I don't – like – cry myself to sleep at night, thinking about Cat kissing Andre's dumb ketchup face or anything – "

"Hmm," says Jade in the same tone.

"Not that his face is dumb," Shapiro backpedals quickly, and then swallows hard – probably swallowing down his insane jealousy or something. "I'm just – I'm just tired is all. I didn't sleep very good. Can't a boy be tired?! We are teenagers you know, really we're supposed to get eight hours of sleep a night, the mind's development – "

Yup, she's poked too hard, and now he's getting all defensive, like boys do. You really shouldn't show any concern for them ever, but then they just cry that you don't care about them, and you never win.

"I'm taking psychology, Shapiro, I know how REM sleep works," Jade interrupts him, hoping to stave off a lecture before it starts.

"Right," says Robbie shortly. He eases his foot down onto the gas pedal, taking them out of the Hollywood Arts lot and onto the highway. "Well, I didn't get any REM sleep. I was – well, my sister decided to not come home last night – "

"Seriously?" Jade interrupts again. Kid's only thirteen, she should have a curfew. It's a _school night_, she shouldn't be –

"It's a _school night_, she shouldn't be – " continues Robbie – "well, she just, she was sleeping over at her friend's house, I guess, but she could have_ told me_, and my _mother_ – "

He cuts off abruptly, gripping the steering wheel tightly.

"What?"

Robbie's silent for a moment longer, and she watches his jaw tighten as he purses his lips, drags the bottom one into his mouth to worry at it a bit with his teeth. He's actually quiet for so long that she thinks maybe he isn't going to answer at all. She doesn't know if she should push here – Shapiro, she can gather, has trouble being close to his mom, but it's not like her and Dad, and she's just not sure if it's safe to be prying –

"Nothing," Robbie says finally. "She just, she wasn't very helpful. She's. She has a. Well. I hung up on her."

"Oh," is all Jade says, a little surprised. "She wasn't home?"

Robbie smiles out at the road, but it's not a very Robbie smile, not one that she likes. "She's never home."

"Oh," Jade says again, blank. Dad works very late hours a lot, and so does Sophia, but someone's nearly always home at night, especially during the week. If they want to go away for a weekend, or they both have to work, they coordinate and let her know. Someone needs to be there for Jeff – she's practically a grown-up, yeah, but being in charge of your annoying sibling constantly is a pretty big responsibility. Robbie's sister isn't much older than Jeff; she shouldn't be left to her own devices all the time, or be so dependent on Robbie.

Sophia isn't Jade's _mother_ or anything, but she is Jeff's, and if Dad's not around, or something happens, there's – well, there's someone there. With Shapiro's dad being, well, demented, or whatever he is – there's no one else, really – no one that he, Robbie, can be dependent on.

She's been reading up a little bit on Alzheimer's disease, though she hasn't found very many articles on … what had it been that Shapiro's dad had, early-onset? Anyway, she knows more about it now, knows what it does to people's minds and bodies – their minds forget, then their bodies, and she doesn't know how badly of a physical state Robbie's father is in, but she figures that at this point, mentally, he's pretty much gone.

Except he isn't really gone, is he? And that's sort of – well, worse than him being really dead, or just uncaring and apparently having moved on to a new life like Mom had. She doesn't have to go and see Mom every weekend, does she?

She feels very small all of a sudden. She never really bothers to think much about Shapiro's life outside of when he's spending time with her. What does he do all the time, when he's not at school, or working at his stupid warehouse job?

"It's okay," Robbie says, jarring Jade out of her thoughts. "I mean, she's – I don't want her to be home anyway."

"Okay," Jade repeats doubtfully, because there's nothing else she can say to this. His voice has taken on a slightly resentful tone – a little deeper and more cutting than the one she uses to talk about Sophia, and that's surprising to her. The venom in his voice.

Robbie's still staring resolutely at the road, eyes fixed on the shoddy Subaru that's puttering in front of them (God, he will never speed up and drive around someone, he says it's _rude!_), and he chews on his lip some more, looking taut. "She's just – when I called her, she was with – I think she has a – " He falls silent again.

Jade frowns over at him, looking at his face, looking at his eyes – she doesn't know if he wants her to dig at him, wants her to extract something. Usually she can tell. "What?"

Robbie blinks again. His eyes clear marginally now, and he stops gripping the wheel so tightly, though the lines of his body still appear somewhat tense. "Nothing," he says again. "It's – nothing. It doesn't matter."

"If you say so," Jade says, wishing she could just take her scissors and cut the doubt out of her voice before Shapiro catches onto it and thinks that she, like, is concerned about him or something.

"Yeah. It's – it's fine," Robbie says, and, clearing his throat, he sends her a little smile, this one more familiar, and imbued with a small moonbeam. He says, "I'm really surprised."

"What?" Jade asks warily.

"It's – I mean, we've been driving for nearly seven minutes now, and you haven't started screaming at me to put the radio on yet."

"Oh," Jade says, and rolls her eyes heavily. "You – well, you distract me, acting like a nutcase. Can I get some music up in this bitch? And no CCR, please, dude."

Robbie smiles again – there it is, full on hearts and unicorns. "Since you asked so nicely," he says, "I shall abide." He flicks his wrist over the stereo, which immediately begins playing Hole.

Jade snorts. "What, have you just been jamming to this all week?" She's always forgetting to take her CDs out of his car.

"Maybe," says Robbie, and turns the volume up.

* * *

Friday night comes, and after she wastes away at play practice, Shapiro has to go to his job, and Cat and Andre are having a date, so Jade drives herself home, bored. She commissions Jeff to help her clean out the guinea pig cages, and after that, they lay out on the sofa, catching up on the episodes of the zombie show that they'd missed earlier in the week. She really does like that Asian boy, and it's a blessing every week that he doesn't get eaten.

Sophia's in the kitchen, baking up something horrible, and Jeff nicely turns up the volume against the sounds of the clanking pans that filter into the room.

"We bought a lot of vegetables last night," Jeff says dejectedly.

Once Sophia's done in the kitchen, she takes Jeff off to spend a few hours at the community center with his playgroup, and since she has nothing else to do, Jade appeases Dad and agrees to watch a movie with him, then sets in on working on her homework while Dad finishes up in his office.

She prints out her history paper, finishes her Calc problems, double-checks them for errors so that Shapiro won't shriek when he looks over them on Monday. Does she – oh, that's right, she does have English homework, she'd made Robbie carry her book out for her after play rehearsal –

Her textbook isn't in her bookbag, and she feels with a nagging sense of dismay that it's probably still in Shapiro's car, or hopefully his backpack. She folds at her notebook paper some, grumpy. She doesn't like to leave things unfinished, she'll either do all of her homework or none of it. She's already sort of hung out with Robbie once today – Sikowitz had been choreographing Vega's dance scenes, so there'd been a lot of downtime for her and Robbie to sit on the bleachers and play Scrabble against each other on their phones – and it's not like she, you know, _minds_ seeing him again, but today even Cat had been mentioning that they hang out a lot (and how is that her fault anyway, when Cat is her only other friend and she always has dates?). She doesn't need to, like, be bringing attention to it, doesn't need the others to key into the little game they're playing, but, well – she does want her textbook.

She folds her notebook paper into the tiniest square possible to kill the maximum amount of time, then tugs her PearPhone out of her jacket pocket and calls him up.

"Woody Allen," she intones, pulling out an old one, when Robbie answers on the second ring. "Did I leave my English book in your bag?"

"Oh," says Robbie. "Um. I don't know. Let me go and look. Also, hi."

Jade grunts softly in greeting. There's a few moments of near-silence as Shapiro (presumably) shuffles through his house, humming tonelessly – and very, very annoyingly – as he seeks out his backpack. After another moment, "Yes, you did."

"Shit," says Jade dispassionately. "I need those essay questions."

"You're doing your homework now?"

"So what?" Jade demands, more edge in her voice than is necessary.

"Just – it's Friday night."

Again: "So what? I don't want to, like, worry about it. I'm surprised _you_ aren't doing your homework, nerd."

"I don't have homework," Robbie tells her complacently. "I finished it during lunch."

"What? You did not!" She doesn't remember Shapiro doing any homework during their lunch period!

"Yes I did," says Robbie. "I was trying to ask you a question about the taco truck, but you told me to shut up four times. So I took out my Biology notebook."

"Oh yeah," says Jade, a little guilty.

"It's okay. You were teasing Tori. I know how you like to do that."

"Yeah, I do," Jade muses, and smiles absently, reminiscing. Robbie gives another toneless hum, but doesn't offer anything else, and after a moment of quiet, Jade demands: "So you – what're you doing then?"

"Um," says Robbie. "Sitting on my couch."

"Oh." Well. Robbie Shapiro, Fun Master Extraordinaire. "That's cool. You watching TV?"

"No."

"Oh," says Jade again, blank.

"No one's home. I don't want to go upstairs. The hall light burned out."

Jade smirks. "You scared?"

"No," says Robbie unconvincingly, and falls back into silence. Jade switches her PearPhone to her other ear, frowning thoughtfully. Is he depressed or something? Not that cares or anything, but she doesn't like the thought of him just sitting and sitting on his couch alone on the weekend, a blank slate.

"Do you wanna come over or something?" she asks him. "Me and my dad are gonna watch a movie together."

"Oh," says Robbie. He pauses for a second, and Jade cringes a little at herself – is she not supposed to mention fathers to him? "Okay, yeah. That'd be cool. Um, I should eat dinner – "

"You can eat over here," Jade interrupts. "Sophia made a bean casserole. You can eat that, right?"

"Is there cheese in it?"

Jade rolls her eyes. "Of course not. My dad's on a diet."

"Okay," says Robbie, sounding amused, which is better than him sounding like nothing. "Thanks, Jade."

"Whatever. No one else will eat it."

"Okay," he says again. "Um. Oh, I'll bring your English book too."

After she gets off the phone with Robbie, Jade putters back upstairs and pokes her head into Dad's study. "Hey, Shapiro's coming over," she alerts him. "That's okay, right?"

Dad lifts his head from his book to give her a distressed look. "I thought you said you were going to watch Pi with me."

She knocks her hip heavily against the doorframe. "Don't worry, we're still going to watch your stupid movie. I'm just letting you know Robbie will be here."

"All right, that's fine," says Dad. "Did you speak to him?"

"Um, yeah, just called him."

"Did you offer him some of Sophia's casserole?"

Jade snorts. "Yeah. He's going to eat it." She leans on the frame of the door, twisting slightly so she's more in the room than not. "Look, Shapiro doesn't really have a dad, so I don't want him getting all depressed over you while he's here."

Dad blinks at the thought of someone getting depressed over him. "I didn't know that," he says.

"I mean, he has one, but he's like – not well, or around – so just don't go being all, like, _Dad-like_, okay?"

"Okay," says Dad.

"Don't be calling me Junebug or any gay shit or being all super nice, okay?"

"Okay," Dad reiterates obediently, nicely ignoring her use of a swear word since Sophia's out.

Jade considers. "But you can still make the popcorn."

Hint of a smile as Dad's head begins to lower back down towards his book. "All right."

"Okay," says Jade. "So I'll just call you down when we're ready to watch the movie."

_Pi_ is a weird old movie – it's from the 90s, Jesus! – and Jade gets bored whenever math is mentioned or the main character delivers an overtly long and poignant voice-over. Beside her on the couch, Robbie crunches loudly on the casserole ("Wow, she really steamed them," he says) and squeaks in terror whenever a swear is uttered onscreen. Dad, to his credit, manages not to squeak, and happily drinks a non-diet soda.

Afterwards, Dad eventually retreats to his office after saying a few moderately dorky and mortifying things, and Jade sort of expects Shapiro to jet too, but he hangs around for some reason. He lays on the floor beside the couch as Jade curls up in the corner, playing Soul Bubbles on Jeff's Ds (which is a stupid baby game but sort of fun anyway, and Jeff will never get to level five without her), and they idly pass a box of wheat-free crackers that have mysteriously made their way into the kitchen (Jade suspects the powers of Sophia at work).

"Hey Jade," Robbie says at one point from the floor.

Jade squints resentfully at the small Ds screen, trying to shrink her cargo of bubbles enough to fit through the spirit tunnel. "Yeah."

"Tell me something good that happened to you today."

Eyebrow arched. "Why?"

"Because it makes me feel good to hear about good things."

Yeah, Shapiro is definitely a wack-job, all right. She doesn't know what's wrong with her, really. This is possible even worse than when Beck would say, "So tell me about your day." Who cares?

Anyway, might as well indulge him. "Um. Well, my stepmom made pumpkin pancakes this morning. And I found a candy bar in the vending machine after third period."

"What kind?"

"Mars bar."

"Oh. Those are nice."

Jade severely doubts that Robbie's ever been allowed to eat a Mars bar in his life, but she chooses not to weigh in on this. "Yeah. Um, I got a B on my Calc test – thanks, by the way. Cat gave me back my hair curler and she didn't break it like last time. And that girl that sits next to me in History and sneezes all the time was out sick. Oh, and Beck's girlfriend gave me three Fat Cakes during your play practice. Also you ate like half that casserole, which is good for me and Dad."

Robbie smiles. "I liked it," he says.

"Because you're a nut job," Jade retorts absently. "What about you, your good things?"

"Me?" says Robbie, sounding surprised, like no one ever asks him about good things that happen to him or something.

"No, the purple lion sitting next to you."

"Oh. Well, I don't know," Robbie says, smartly ignoring her sarcastic comment. "Um, I watched Pi with you and your dad."

"That's it?"

"Yeah."

"Your life is pretty sad," Jade comments, and tosses the pack of crackers down onto his stomach.

Robbie crunches loudly on the last one. "I guess so."

Jade waves the DS in his face. "Hey, can you beat this for me? Don't let any of the souls get out."

"The, um – ?" Robbie blinks, taking it from her.

"The little colored beads."

"Oh." He lays back, holding the little gaming system over his head.

"Don't fuck it up, I haven't hit a save point."

Robbie shoots her a skeptical look. "West, please."

**AN: Next chapter coming soon. :) I am trying to move things along a bit. I don't know how many of you reading this have also read TYSW – I would guess most – but I'm trying to treat this as it's own story (which of course it is, being 80 zillion words, blah), trying to make sure things on Jade's end regarding Robbie and his life stay subjective and also giving her problems of her own... which just adds to my own problem: the problem of this story being long as chizz. I feel like I'm actually focusing _too much _on the Rade, but don't worry, next chapter will have more Jade/Cat and a favorite OC of mine being introduced.  
**

**Please note my tiny references to The Big Lebowski and The Walking Dead. :)  
**


	32. Chapter 32

**Hello all! I've been on semi-hiatus for a bit (still writing, but not really submitting anything), and I wanted to drop by and publish a chapter I've been sitting on / editing for a while.**

**I still want to write this fic and I'll definitely finish it, though it may take a while. I was reading over it and became sort of overwhelmed at how much I had written and how much further I had to go!**

**Anyway. Enjoy, please review if you're still out there and hoping for these updates, but mostly enjoy!**

**Chapter Thirty-Two**

And so, March continues its onward slug into spring, bringing heavy rains down upon southern California with disturbing frequency. Robbie's hair frizzes alarmingly. Beck nearly has a panic attack out by the Asphalt Cafe due to wind speeds. Some of Cat's everlasting residual hair dye seeps down and stains her sweater.

'I thought it didn't ever rain in LA,' Beck commented one lunch period, looking comically put-out and dismal as he held a soggy newspaper over his and Tori's heads.

'I believe that's Seattle,' Robbie had said innocently, into his sandwich, and Beck sent a mistrustful frown his way.

Jade tried not to feel amused as she'd leafed through her binder, the pages already slightly damp from the gently misting sky. Whoever designed Hollywood Arts had been a genius visually, but not so good with the whole common-sense thing. The majority of the Asphalt and the rest of the courtyard were at least 85% open sky.

Anyway, Jade didn't mind the weather. She'd inherited her awesome hair from her mom – it didn't really frizz out too much, and she thought she looked all right with it up in a bun or a high ponytail. The other day, Tori had said that her wearing it up accentuated her cheekbones, then looked confused when Jade laughed loudly.

The month hasn't been too bad so far. She's been busy as usual, what with the screenplay with Shapiro, working on the scenery for Sikowitz's play; Andre was making a big deal about his song for the Full Moon and was always practicing now so Cat actually had to hang out again –

Speaking of the Full Moon showcase, everyone has been bugging out about it as usual. Today her Geometry class's lesson had ended a few minutes before the bell, and hearing her classmate's chatter about the sign-up sheet and the concern for show slots had reminded her that she needs to put her name down for an audition, and soon.

She's got a song – well, actually, she's got a couple songs, about half a dozen, but she hasn't shown them to anyone, not really. Usually she writes them on the piano, words first, alternately tapping out at the keys and screaming at her brother to get out of the den so she can concentrate, until she finds a melody she likes. They're slower-paced, not something super hip and popular that you'd hear on the radio, probably not something someone like _Tori_ would churn out, but ...

There's one she has that she likes; she's been playing around with it for a while, since the summer, when she and Beck were still together. It's not about him – _gross!_ – it's not about … well, it's not about anyone, really. Maybe it had started out that way, but not any longer. She hadn't even thought of it for a while, but she'd taken out the lyrics a couple of week ago and had been messing around with them since then.

"You're going to do the Full Moon?" Robbie asks now, out in the hallway, watching attractively with his mouth open a little as she leans against the wall to add her name to the try-outs list.

Jade taps at the bottom of his chin with her free hand as she snaps the Sharpie back onto its clip, and Robbie closes his mouth with a little_ pop!_, blinking at her and batting her hand away. "Aren't you?"

He frowns thoughtfully at the bulletin board. "I don't know. I mean, we've got a lot going on. You have something for it?"

"I got a song," Jade responds shortly.

"Oh yeah?" Robbie looks interested. "What song? You wrote it? Did you play it for me? Is it the one about your dad eating your fries?"

"What are you talking about?" Jade snaps, annoyed, because she has no idea what he's saying as usual.

Robbie just keeps looking down at her, and he starts grinning. He says, "You know, right before I let your dad escape from the Nightosphere."

Jade stares at him for a second before realizing he's talking about Adventure Time, and she snorts and shoves at him again. "Shut up, you're so stupid!"

"Okay, Marceline," Robbie says, still grinning, and he doesn't even bother to try and evade her fists!

"Dude, she has like no boobs, I am way hotter than her, why are you even still talking?"

"She can't have boobs, she's a cartoon character on a kid's show – "

"And anyway, are you implying that you are Finn? Because you would never be Finn, you are not even that cool, you're like that awkward candy butler or something – "

Cat comes up suddenly between them, looking pink and happy as usual. "Hi hi! What are we talking about?"

"Cartoons," Jade says, as Shapiro says, "The Full Moon showcase."

"I like both those things!" Cat declares and looks even happier / pinker.

Robbie takes it upon himself to inform her, "Jade is writing a song," and Cat turns, beaming.

"Jade! What song?"

Jade feels sort of on-edge, shooting a dark little glance over at Robbie, who just smiles ignorantly back at her.

She doesn't want to talk about You Don't Know Me with Cat or with Robbie yet – firstly, it's not finished, it's not like she's just going to break into song for them without any backing music, God; secondly, she doesn't want to deal with any of their questions, okay? Why do they even care so much about what she's doing or writing or singing?

"Just a song I got," she snaps. Cat's mouth begins to open again, so Jade cuts her off quickly by covering the girl's whole face with her hands and saying quickly, "It's totally not even done yet, so you can't hear it, okay, so shut up."

"Mrff murrf murrf," says Cat dismally.

"And anyway, what are_ you _even doing for the showcase?"

"Mrrrf mmph mrrf!" says Cat.

"Oh, right," says Jade, and she pulls her hand away.

Cat clears her throat, and Jade notes a little guiltily that she's smudged Cat's lipstick, but she doesn't bother to fix it because probably in two seconds Cat will start eating something and ruin it anyway. "I don't know. I took all those tapdancing classes, but my brother kept hiding my shoes and Dad said he won't buy me a forth pair. Oh, or I'd like to do a juggling routine, but that might be a bad idea after what happened with Sikowitz and those apples. Maybe I won't do anything for it. Maybe next year? What about you, Robbie?"

"Oh," says Robbie. "I don't know. What'm I going to do?"

"A soliloquy about soybeans in iambic pentameter?" Jade suggests sweetly.

"You could sing a song with Rex again?" Cat says.

Robbie looks contemplative about both. Oh God! Thankfully, he just says, "I don't know," again.

"You don't want to do the showcase, Robbie?" Cat asks him, pouting and doing her Cat thing where she completely disregards the concept of personal space, leaning in towards him.

Robbie nicely moves a few inches away, almost stepping on Jade, so she grabs up the marker from the clipboard to scribble meanly on his arm.

"I have a lot going on," he says, sending a warning glance over to Jade as she poises the pen at him. Jade starts to draw a penis on his forearm, noting that before, he'd said _we_, then gets scared because he really will scream forever, and changes it to an airplane at the last minute.

Cat pouts some more. 'That's no fun, Robbie,' she says.

Robbie looks very injured at being called no-fun. He turns to look at Jade, taking pause to glower contemplatively at the airplane now adorning his arm, but Jade quickly cuts him off before he can start badgering her about her song some more: 'Okay, so I'm bored. What're you doing, Cat? What're we doing? Robbie?'

'Well,' says Robbie.

'I'm hungry,' Jade announces. 'Are we going to Groovy Smoothie or not? Cat? Or do you have _plans_?'

'I don't have plans,' Cat says. 'That's why I was looking for you guys, I wanted to know - '

'So let's go,' Jade interrupts, and starts heading down the hallway without looking back to see if they'll follow her. 'You guys can buy me a Blueberry Blitz.'

There's the soft silence of Cat and Robbie being dour from behind her. Cat whispers, 'Jade is so _bossy._'

Robbie whispers back, 'I know.'

Jade whirls around swiftly to glare at them, and they both yelp in surprise, as if she hasn't been standing _four feet away_. She reaches out and bops the both of them very hard atop the head. 'Excuse me? _Who's_ bossy?'

Robbie yelps again, rubbing his head. 'Not – not you. Not Jade.'

'Definitely not Jade,' Cat repeats sadly, also cradling her head.

Jade smiles beatifically and slings an arm around Cat's shoulder, the other around Robbie's. 'Smart. Let's go, kiddies.' She tightens her grip and begins leading them down the hallway.

Cat mutters, so soft it's barely above a breathe but Jade hears it anyway because she hears all: '_Bossy._'

* * *

"Hey Harris," Jade says one day at lunch. Andre looks up at her, chewing, and clearly unimpressed by the use of his surname. "Can you help me out with my song for the showcase? I got the guitar tabs all written out, but I can't play it fast enough."

Andre looks contemplative. "Yeah, why not? You got it on you?"

"Yeah." Jade pulls her messenger bag up onto the table, knocking Robbie with it, and drags out her notebook. She flips through to the page, smoothing it down. Robbie crinkles up his nose at her handwriting, but wisely doesn't speak.

Andre looks it over once she hands it to him. "Yeah," he says again slowly, vibing. "Lemme go through it in Guitar Theory. You wanna get together tomorrow?"

"Yeah, whatever."

Tori, sitting across from her, makes one of her awkward bird noises. "What about me?" she asks Andre. "I was going to ask you to help me."

"Sorry muchacha," Andre says. "I owe Robbie for helpin' me with my science project, so I guess I owe Jade too."

Somehow, Jade manages not to beam. Suck it, Vega!

Robbie crinkles up his nose some more. "You owe _me_, so – ? How exactly does that work?" No one cares enough to answer him, Andre still vibing silently and Tori looking upset, so he makes a little awkward noise of his own. He turns to pout at Jade, some salad falling out of his mouth because he's just so sexy like that. He says, "_I_ could help you with your song, Jade."

Jade leans over to place her hand gently on his forearm, just below his elbow. "Andre is just better than you," she tells him very seriously, knitting her brows together in concern, then smirks.

Robbie looks back at her, a flush beginning to creep up his neck. His eyes drop down to look at her hand, still on his arm, then flash back up to her face. 'You, ah...' he says, then clears his throat. Now his ears are red, too. 'Oh, shut up,' he mutters finally, breaking eye contact once more to blush down at his pathetic lunch.

Jade smiles sweetly and releases him to pop open the tab on her soda. She notes Beck gazing at her with a strange expression and scowls.

* * *

Things are weird – Robbie, _Shapiro_, is weird, she notes, not for the first time. Since that day a few weeks ago when he'd semi-freaked out in his car, she's been watching him more closely, trying to figure him out. He'd almost opened up to her then, almost let something slip out, and it's like – you know, whatever. It's not like she _cares_, you know? But he _is_ her friend, after all, friends tell each other about their problems – she certainly complains about Sophia enough! – and she wants to know what his are.

Sometimes he comes to school looking exhausted and irritated. He never snaps at her – the boy knows better than that – but she's seen him snap at Beck several times, roll his eyes at Cat. One day he'd wandered away from Tori when she'd been in mid-sentence, which brought Jade much joy.

Usually Jade can cheer him up, though – not that she_ tries_, you know? Clearly he's just very attracted to her sparkling personality. Anyway, this week he's been all right – they'd stayed at school until nearly seven on Tuesday, finally finishing to film Sikowitz's three scenes, and he'd texted her a lot last night, stupid math jokes, asking her questions about the guinea pig children.

It's Wednesday now, and she's leaving school late, exhausted from an hour of having painted the last scenery scroll for the play and listening to Alison prattle on about the orchestra trip she was taking this weekend. She's turning the corner, head bent down as she sends Cat a text – she's hoping Cat is still around, she needs a ride home – when she bumps head-on into someone.

The someone yelps, and Jade mutters out an unconscious, 'Hey, sorry,' before she looks up and sees it's little Dajakis, the freshman fish bait who's been irritating her endlessly for the past few months.

Jade's arms cross automatically and she scowls. 'I take it back,' she says, as Goober smirks at her. 'Watch where you're going, twerp.'

'I hope you drive better than you walk,' Danny Phantom says innocently, enraging her, and she's opened her mouth to retort with something nasty when suddenly Shapiro pops up out of nowhere, surprising her.

'Hey Jade!' he says happily, cutting her off.

The insult dies on the edge of her tongue as she stares at him – ew, what's _that_ about? She can't possibly be, like, tongue-tied in the presence of _Robbie,_ for Christ's sakes! 'He-ey,' she says slowly. 'What're you still doing here?'

'Hanging posters for the play!' Robbie says, and brandishes the stack of papers he's holding at her: plain printer paper, with a black and white picture of the cast beaming out at her. Jade notes with something akin to either amusement or horror that Beck appears to be wearing a muumuu. He's holding a pipe over Robbie's head, who looks oblivious with Cat on his arm.

'That's an … interesting shot,' she manages.

Robbie beams. 'We had to pose for an hour,' he tells her. 'Anyway, I'm putting these up all over the school – Cat said she would help me but I haven't seen her. Luckily I ran into Danny, who said he'd help!'

'Oh really,' Jade bites out. She sends Goober an appraising glare – the kid doesn't seem to be the type of person who'd help anyone out without wanting something in return.

Shapiro continues to look oblivious and happy. 'Yeah!' he says. 'He even offered to carry my backpack for me!'

Jade uncrosses her arms to cock them on her hips. 'Did he?' she asks, arching an eyebrow over at Danny, who suddenly looks uncomfortable, shifting what she now realizes is Shapiro's nerdy green bookbag over his shoulder. Jade looks at him hard, measuringly, before saying: "That's _so_ sweet."

"That's me," replies Danny, and sends her what she finds to be a completely ironic grin.

"Do you want to stay and help?" Robbie asks, but then suddenly Jade's phone lights up, and it's a text from Cat saying she's waiting out in the parking lot.

Jade hesitates, because hanging posters with Shapiro and Nerdboy isn't exactly appealing, and she has been wanting to spend more time with Cat, so … "Ah, sounds thrilling, but I gotta jet. Um … I'll text you later tonight or something."

"Oh, okay." Robbie looks briefly disappointed, which is – well – but then he brightens, smiling down at Danny. "Well, we'll be all right. Hey, maybe we can video-chat later! I want to see if you can guess my new screenname."

Danny's giving her an unbearable smirk, and it takes all of her restraint not to reach out and punch him – God, Shapiro really just doesn't know how much he baits the kid! "Yeah, sure, whatever. See you later."

"See you!" Shapiro flashes her another smile before turning back to the wall and standing on his tiptoes to hang his latest poster.

Jade shifts her messenger bag tightly across her shoulder and moves past them to head down the hall towards the front of the school. Before she turns towards the doors to go and find Cat, she pauses to send another glance at the boys – Robbie's further down the hall now, talking on about something probably dorky, with twerpy Danny trailing after him, looking incredibly bored and vacant. He holds Robbie's backpack tightly, glancing around.

The kid's up to something, Jade knows. She has no clue what exactly he wants out of Shapiro, but she's going to figure it out.

Her phone buzzes again. Jade looks down – Cat's sent her another message. _I got glue all over my shoes and I'm so depressed! I need ice cream! Ice Cream? Ice Cream Palace? Caramel Nut Fusion! It's on me!_

Oh hell yeah. Well, she'll figure it out later, at any rate.


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter Thirty-Three**

On Sunday night, Dad has a stupid party for work, and commissions the whole family to go. Jade enlists Cat as her plus-one, because there's no way she's inviting _Beck,_ as she might have considered in previous years. The girls have a lot of fun, roaming around the crowded reception hall, making fun of middle-aged women's choice of dress, loading their plates high with fruit salad, and bopping around on the dance floor to cheesy 90s pop music with Jeff, who'd managed to almost strangled himself with his bowtie twice.

At one point, Cat mentions that she'd hung out with Robbie the previous day.

Jade feels her back prickle with inane and improbable jealousy – she _knows_ that Robbie doesn't like Cat that way anymore. Then her back prickles again, because why the hell does she care about _that_?

Cat and Robbie have been friends for longer than Jade's been friends with him. Cat's got a boyfriend, the most talented musician in school; she and Robbie are allowed to see each other whenever they want. They're allowed to hang out whenever they want.

It's just, you know. Why the hell would they _want to?!_

She doesn't say any of this to Cat, of course. If she did, Cat might know something is up, and she might question her. Cat is fairly oblivious at the best of times, which is why it's been easy to hide her recent weird ... flirting relationship type-thing with Robbie. Still, though, Jade feels guilty when she thinks about it – she's always been honest with Cat, to a fault, even. The only time she's held the truth from Cat had been, hell, back in eighth grade, with the whole kissing thing with Mark. And that was because that would have hurt Cat.

Finding out that Jade had kissed Robbie wouldn't hurt Cat. Finding out that Jade had been keeping secrets might.

So, with all that in mind, Jade forces herself to keep her shoulders relaxed, locking her eyes down on the pile of cherries and kiwis on her plate, balanced on her hands. "Oh yeah?" she murmurs down to them. "How was that? You guys have fun?"

Cat giggles happily around the piece of fried chicken she's holding. "Yeah, it was cool. We watched Boogie Bear 3! I haven't hung out with Robbie in a while, you know?"

_Or ever,_ thinks Jade, but she just swallows down her grimace and says: "Yeah."

"Sorry I didn't call you too," Cat says. "I just remembered you said you were going to watch Rock-A-Doodle with Jeff." Yep, that had been scintillating. Oh, all right – hell, the movie had been super-cute. Cat pauses to smile sweetly over at her. She says, "I know how you like to spend time with him."

Jade lets her smile bloom across her face at that – good old Cat! One thing that she's always appreciated about the girl is that she's been nice to Jeff from the start; she gets along with Jade's brother so well, and she never laughs about the weird things he does or try to lecture Jade about how she treats him. Maybe having a weirdo brother of her own has something to do with it. "Yeah," she says.

"Anyway," Cat continues, tossing the chicken bone back down on her plate and leaning on her tiptoes against the wall, "Robbie seemed kind of … weird? I mean, weird for Robbie. He seems sort of, like, sad? Do you think he's sad, Jade?"

"Uh." Jade blinks. "How should I know?"

Cat shrugs. "I don't know. You know Robbie – I mean you guys hang out all the time! Has he said anything?"

"No," says Jade shortly, and then feels bad because – well, she's been wondering, too, and no, he hasn't said anything.

"Oh," Cat says lightly, and shrugs. "Well, maybe he's just stressed about the play and stuff. You know we still haven't even really kissed for it?"

"Yeah, he told me," Jade says in what she hopes is concealed glee.

Whitney Houston starts playing over the speakers and Cat squeals in delight, throwing her hands up and then grabbing at Jade to pull her back onto the dance floor. Jade casts one last looking look at her plate of fruit salad as she allows herself to be led off.

* * *

Lunch is difficult, Jade thinks, not for the first time, as she shifts her weight heavily to the opposite foot and glowers at the boy standing her front of her and blocking the whole soda machine.

Tall kid is wearing an old plaid shirt and he's got that sort of blonde hair that guys can just have and girls would literally kill for – you know, the kind that looks all soft and highlighted and styled even though you know they've never ran a brush through their damn hair to get it to look that way. That was a really long sentence about hair, but Jade's been looking at it for a _really long fricking_ time, maybe ninety seconds now as this kid sloths all over the vending machine!

Blonde Sloth sighs for the third time at the soda machine, reaching out to jab at the lowest button once more. The machines in the Asphalt Cafe are infamous for eating quarters, which is why Jade general finagles dimes from Shapiro.

"Hit it," Jade intones loudly from behind him, and the kid turns slowly to send her a startled look.

"'Scuse me?" he asks slowly, and then, disgustingly, looks her up and down before grinning. Ugh! Jade grits her teeth unconsciously, arms crossing automatically.

"It gets stuck a lot," she explains, and moves forward to push past him, giving the machine a hard open-palmed smack. There's a loud click and a rumble, and then another garbled noise as the machine finally spits out the kid's soda. Jade leans down – still feeling Blondie's eyes on her – to retrieve the drink and shove it at him. "There, Christ."

"Oh!" says Blondie in happiness. "Hey, thanks."

"Whatever," Jade says without turning, and she starts to deposit her own change into the machine, then jabs at the blank button at the top which she knows to be pineapple.

After she retrieves her soda and turns around to start back to her table, she notes that Blondie is still standing beside her, looking. He appears vaguely familiar to her, and she glares back at him for a few moments, trying to place him.

Blondie says, in apparent great distress, "Aw, man, they got pineapple soda here? That's my favorite."

"Yeah, it's the best," Jade says. Normally she wouldn't be so friendly, especially to a goon who's just checked her out, but – well, pineapple_ is _the best. She tells him, "Top button, if you're wondering."

"Hey, thanks," Blondie says again. Jade allows him a tight-lipped smile, turning to go, but then he speaks again, stopping her: "Hey, you're Jade, right?"

Oh, God, does he want to have a _conversation_? This is the freaking schoolyard, not a movie set; she doesn't feel like having a _meet-cute_ or something. "Yup," she says bitingly. "Why, what rumor'd you hear?"

Blondie grins – he's got a cute face, and his eyes are really blue. He's really tall, which would be nice, if she cared. "No rumors," he says. "I'm Steve. You're in my history class. I sit in the back."

"Oh, right." Now she remembers – the kid's new to the school, just transferred in after winter break. She doesn't know how she hadn't immediately placed him from her class, as he's, you know, pretty cute and all. But he doesn't talk much during class, and his head is usually down, because he sleeps through it. Jade, who's guilty of napping during their entire study of the Battle of the Bulge, doesn't really blame him. "You're from, like, Boston or some shit, right?"

"New Jersey," Blondie says, and flashes her another grin. His teeth aren't super straight, but they're pretty white – it is, she has to admit, a nice smile.

"God, that's even worse," Jade says, and Blondie grins some more. Jade doesn't know the first thing about New Jersey, and she doesn't care to, and besides that, she's _hungry_, so – "Yeah, so, as nice as this was, you just wasted about five minutes of my life. Later, dude." She lets her smile drop from her face, turns once more to go.

"Later," Blondie parrots after her. Jade doesn't stop walking, but he's apparently undeterred, and says to her back: "Hey, I like your shirt. Velvet Underground, cool."

Jade pauses, soda in hand, to glance down stupidly at her top, like she's forgotten what she chose to wear today. White and oversized, a mall-present from Dad a few years ago when they still took trips to the mall together. Before she'd started spending every waking second at the RV with Beck.

The shirt is old, but worn well – she'd found it a few months back, cut it up and stitched it one night so that it hangs off one shoulder now and exposes a little of her back. Drunkenly talking about Lou Reed with Alison at Beck's party back in January had made her think of it.

"Yeah," she says slowly, resigning herself to turning around once more. "They're all right."

"White Light's my favorite album," Blondie offers.

Before she can stop it: "So's my dad's," Jade blurts out, then scowls at herself. Blondie just grins some more, expression otherwise indeterminable.

_Weird._ And annoying.

"Dad's got good taste," Blondie says. "Anyway, I'll let you get back. See you in History, Jade."

"Whatever," says Jade. She's unsure if the kid is hitting on her or not – yeah, okay, she knows when boys _want_ her, but as for the whole _flirting_ aspect … that's still sort of a mystery to her at times. Beck has been her only serious boyfriend, the only guy she's really let herself be not-nasty to, aside from Robbie.

Is it flirting to talk about sixties rock bands that your father likes? Also, why the hell is this kid still standing by the damn vending machine?!

Jade turns away a third time, pointed now, shoulders strong, and stalks her way across the courtyard.

When she finally reaches her friends at the usual table, everyone's looking at her, which is something that's becoming irritatingly common these days. Beck and Robbie are sitting across from each other at the end of the table, and they both stare skeptically at her (Beck has to twist awkwardly on his spot on the bench to do so), then back over at Blondie, like they're her two gay dads or something, all hovering and protective but still overwhelming with combined bad fashion sense.

"Who was _that?_" Robbie demands, nagging her.

"Some stoner," retorts Beck, and twists once more to look at her expectantly. "Jade?"

Jesus lord and Vincent Price!

"What are you, my _keepers_?" Jade sneers, taking her usual seat beside Robbie and elbowing him too hard in order to get him to move over.

"Just _curious_," Robbie huffs, sulky, and he and Beck exchange a look that is particularly annoying to her.

Cat looks happy. "I know who was that," she says, and leans conspiratorially (Andre looks less happy). "Jade, why was Steve Strickland talking to you?"

"He wasn't talking to me," Jade snaps, because Beck's and Robbie's heads have both swiveled over once more. "He got a soda. I got a soda. Big deal."

"Steve Strickland?" Tori repeats, keying in four seconds late as usual. She makes one of her stupid faces. "He's pretty cute."

"I know," says Cat, also making a pretty stupid face, considering.

Andre looks even less happy. "He ain't that cute!" he says loudly.

"Yeah," says Beck.

"He's all right," says Robbie. Andre sends him a considering look, furrowing his brow a little.

Jade moans loudly, wishing to get the attention off of herself. "God, I'm surrounded by idiots. Vega, start talking about your stupid dance or something."

Tori looks overjoyed. "Well," she says. "The student council voted yesterday and we've decided on a name – look out for the Spring Fling!"

Cat squeaks happily. Tori beams. "So you guys are going to help me with the decorations, right?" She trains her bug-eyes on Beck and Robbie and Jade, continuing: "I know you're busy with the play, but – "

"I'm actually booked up with trying to kill myself," Jade interrupts loudly, and Tori sends her an exaggerated pout.

"Beck?" she asks wheedlingly.

"Sure, I'm down," Beck says. "Ali's got orchestra every Friday, so I'm free then. What about you, Robbie?"

"Can you do origami, Robbie?" Tori breaks in eagerly.

Robbie looks trapped and depressed. "Well, I, ah – " he starts, but Tori just yelps happily anyway.

"Don't worry, I'll teach you! I'm thinking bird and flowers. Hey, do you think we can laminate them?"

"Ah -"

"Anyway, we'll figure something out. Gosh, I'm so excited! And I mean, you're all coming, right? Oh! Let me know what kind of food you guys will want, I don't think we'll have actual_ dinner_ dinners, but – "

Robbie sinks low on the bench, shooting Jade a decidedly dour look. Jade, who knows this is really all her fault, smiles back.


End file.
